


Do It For The Vine

by catholicschoolgirl



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Crack, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Hipster Rockstar!Harry, M/M, Miscommunication, Sleep Sex, Threesome - M/M/M, Tumblr blogger!Zayn, Vine famous!Louis, secret depths hidden underneath a veneer of stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:24:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catholicschoolgirl/pseuds/catholicschoolgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone would think it was funny. Not his Grandma, maybe, but <i>someone</i>."</p><p>Or the one where Louis is famous for humping furniture on Vine, and he really wants to hook up with Zayn, but Zayn might be sleeping with Harry, who is Louis' soulmate (even though Harry doesn't know it yet).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: Skype

**Author's Note:**

  * For [handcversbruise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handcversbruise/gifts).



> Frida and I came up with the idea for this in an In N Out on the way to see Austin Mahone, which says a lot about its literary value.
> 
> Anyway - two fic gifts in one day, Frida - you sure are popular. I'll try to update weekly in between my ~~~serious works.

“Make sure to hold the phone steady, Niall,” Louis admonished, swiping a bit of hair out of his face so his snapback would sit right on his head. “We don't need to do a million and one takes of this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall muttered, scrolling through all of Louis' texts messages as if Louis didn't fucking know that was what he was doing. “Let's just get this over with.”

Louis huffed and ran his fingers over his abs nervously. He always got a bit agitated any time he was going to upload a new video onto Vine, insecure, mental voice whispering that nobody was going to like this, nobody was going to Revine, and that the comment section would be filled with remarks about how he was just another dumb white boy awkwardly humping furniture on Vine. Which like – all right, he kind of was, but at the same time, this had become a really fun hobby. Louis started off as a bit of a YouTube personality, ranting and raving about reality television, sometimes uploading covers of him singing along to whatever his favorite song was at the moment, but Vine kind of took things to another level. All it took was one drunk six second clip of him and his best friend, Niall, taking their shirts off and lowering themselves to the carpet to “My Humps” for his Twitter and Instagram follower count to skyrocket.

The internet was weird. Louis was weird. Life was weird.

So Louis kept up with being a manic on YouTube, and made videos for Vine as well. It was fun, having girls and boys keysmash over him, telling him he was hot and linking his stuff all over the damn place – he once saw a gif of himself on a porn blog and briefly considered a career change. He had made new friends over this thing, too, one of them being Zayn, this ridiculously hot Tumblr personality who apparently did nothing all day besides post gifs from _The Walking Dead_ and _Breaking Bad_ , take pictures of his face and clothes, and respond to Louis' appeals for them to have sex. Louis had been trying to get with Zayn for a few weeks now – they both lived in Los Angeles and were completely dancing around each other. Zayn was kind of a huge flirt, and Louis was too, and Zayn called Louis any time he was drunk, which was kind of often, but eh. Louis just needed to determine whether Zayn was only a friend or if Zayn would let Louis fuck his face at least once – but Louis was becoming increasingly convinced that Zayn only left the house to buy sneakers and beanies, and only ever had sex with people he courted on Snapchat first, so he wasn't exactly holding his breath.

“You sure you don't wanna be in this one, Niall?” Louis asked, fidgeting again with his hat. “We can always use my YouTube camera and upload it.”

“Nah,” Niall huffed, walking over to their shitty boombox to start playing Pretty Ricky. “This one's all you.”

Louis shrugged and turned on all the charm the minute Niall started to record.

 

Louis was sitting on his laptop, tweeting cruel comments about The Wanted's flop reality show when he got the familiar beep signaling a WhatsApp message from Zayn. Louis paused the television – ah the wonders of having AT&T – and flicked their chat open. Zayn, true to form, had only tweeted one word – “Skype?”

Louis huffed a sigh and went to start up Skype. Louis hated Skype. Skype was only good for watching people get off while you simultaneously got off and Zayn never wanted to do that, because he had weird romantic ideas about what Zayn and Louis could be, or something. Louis was fine with being another person that Zayn got to know over Snapchat, he had ceased to be picky.

Zayn's pixelated face slowly appeared on Louis' screen. “I'm drunk,” Zayn announced loudly.

“Really?” Louis asked, scrolling through the hundreds of notifications on his Vine account. People liked the newest video, he was really quite pleased with himself.

“Yes, and you aren't here,” Zayn continued, leaning on his hand. “Come here immediately.”

“Maybe stop asking me for hookups at – ” Louis checked the time on his phone “– one in the morning, and I'll consider it. I'm a one in the afternoon type of gal, you see. You have to take me roller skating, and buy me Red Vines, and tell me we'll go steady, and then I'll let you cop a feel. Also, I don't know where in LA you live. And you only pretend you want me when you're drunk.” Louis cradled his face in his hands and began to sing, “' _Why'd you only call me when you're high_ – '”

“No Arctic Monkeys,” Zayn mumbled grumpily. “Stop. Just – come over?”

“I really want to fuck your face, but seriously – did you not hear anything I just said?”

Zayn shrugged and Louis sighed before just turning Skype off. He'd lie and say that his cat had kicked the computer over, or something. He didn't have a cat.

 

Louis was scrolling through his most recent Instagram followers and ranking them, blessing those that he thought were an eight or over with a follow back. He reached this really rather hipster looking fellow with curly brown hair and bright green eyes, thinking distantly, “This guy's like a 21,” before hitting the follow button and continuing his scroll.

 

Zayn got drunk again the next night. “I didn't know you were mutually following that Harry Styles guy on Instagram,” Zayn mumbled. They weren't on Skype – Louis had convinced Zayn to call him like a normal person. Louis didn't want to look at Zayn's face right now unless he was fucking it.

“I honestly have no idea who you're talking about,” Louis replied, turning a page in the copy of _Us Magazin_ e he had stolen from CVS.

“You followed him today,” Zayn answered sleepily. “Brown hair? Green eyes? Ridiculously good looking member of one of the hottest acts to come from the most recent season of X Factor?”

Louis grunted. “I still don't know what you're talking about.”

“Aren't you like, a reality TV vlogger?” Zayn asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Argh, just go Google.”

Louis sighed, pulling his computer into his lap and typing the name “Harry Styles” into the Google search bar. “Oh,” Louis said, remembering the hipster with green eyes. “Yeah, he was on my recent followers list, so I followed him back this morning. He's got a great face.”

Zayn made a small frustrated noise. “And?”

“And what?”

“And have you _talked_ to him?”

“No,” Louis replied. “Should I?”

“He's only one of the hottest things to come out of X Factor, so I don't know – _yes_.”

“Why are you so invested in who I'm following on Instagram?” Louis asked, turning on speaker phone so he could better scroll through Harry's pictures. The bastard was indeed ridiculously good looking. Louis decided to look through the Harry Styles tag on Tumblr, too, and then decided to track it, since he was already there. And then he followed Harry on Twitter, because he had that window open, and apparently Harry was already following him. Cool. Life was cool. Louis was cool. The internet was cool.

“I stalk all of your social media channels,” Zayn replied. “Also, I'm drunk.”

“Go to bed,” Louis snapped, and he hung up. He thought about having a drink himself, but he sent Harry a DM instead.

 

Louis tended to spiral into things very quickly, because he was bored and he technically was enrolled at the local community college but mostly he was able to make money by selling T-shirts on the Internet, giving him plenty of time to not do his homework, but his descent into obsession with Harry Styles was especially rapid. He was just really fucking pretty, all right – his Instagram picture actually didn't do him justice – and he could sing, and he was in this really awesome band with this guy named Liam, they were like fucking Arctic Monkeys, kinda, maybe mixed with The Killers, and Louis loved The Killers, and maybe he loved Harry, a little.

Louis called Zayn back at five in the morning. Louis was doing it mainly to be a dick, not because he expected Zayn to answer. Zayn's last Tumblr post was three hours ago, an attempt at being cryptic when mostly he was just being drunk – “ _We had the type of nights where morning comes too soon, and nothing was the same_ ,” like fucking all right, Zayn, way to pretend you're deep by going onto that Drake Quotes Twitter and literally copying and fucking pasting lyrics that _weren't even about Louis_. Louis was probably going to die if he didn't hold Zayn's dick soon.

Zayn did pick up, probably because Louis had once left him twenty-seven voicemails in one night and then demanded that Zayn set Louis' ringtone to something really annoying so that he'd always wake up – now Avril Lavigne's “Girlfriend” played whenever Louis called. So Zayn picked up because he hated Avril Lavigne, and Louis yelled, “I'm probably gonna die if I don't hold your dick soon,” which wasn't exactly what he meant to say, or even the reason why he called, but whatever. He still had Zayn's Tumblr open, in a minimized window next to his Harry Styles stalking tabs, and it was really unfair that Zayn was sending Snaps of his dick to that boxer from Instagram and not him.

Zayn grumbled something, he was probably still drunk. He was always drunk. Louis was sympathetic for Zayn's liver.

“Did I wake you? I don't care. I'm in love.”

Zayn squawked, was probably shaking himself awake. “In love? With who?”

“Not you,” Louis said childishly. “I'm joking. I love you best forever. But I also love Harry Styles. I wanna fuck his face.”

Zayn humphed and Louis couldn't help the grin that was spreading quickly across his own countenance. “Are you jealous, dear Zayn?”

“I thought you only wanted to fuck my face?”

“You aren't serious about me,” Louis answered, checking his Twitter again to make sure Harry hadn't responded to his DM – a simple “Sup?” that Harry really should respond to immediately. It had been a whole four hours and like, yeah, maybe Harry wasn't awake at five AM but he should be, because Louis was, and Louis was his _soul mate_. “You never post about me at three in the morning anymore.”

“What?” Zayn asked. Louis could imagine that he was probably wiping the sleep out of his eyes, looking bleary and soft and Louis probably was going to die if he never fucked Zayn. Like that would be an awful life. Everyone should get to have sex with Zayn. It was law. Louis had thought it and it was so.

“Post about me, so I know our love is real,” Louis said nonsensically. He should probably go to bed. His next class was in four hours, although at this point it looked like he would skip again. Not that it mattered – he was going to be in community college for the next seven million years, but if Zayn fucked him, or if he conned Harry into marrying him, then it wouldn't matter. Zayn wasn't rich, but he was pretty, and Louis was pretty, they could try to live off that forever. And Harry was probably going to be rich. Maybe Louis could orchestrate something where Zayn and Louis were like, in a harem. Harry's harem. This all seemed entirely reasonable, but Louis was very tired.

“I'm going to bed,” Louis announced, and he turned off his phone and threw it on the floor. He had carpet, so it was all right.

When he woke up that afternoon, he looked through Zayn's blog, and smiled at the text post made at five thirty in the morning – “ _I felt like we had it all planned out, I guess I fucked up the vision. Learning the true consequences of my selfish decisions_.”

 

Louis' blissful Zayn-induced high lasted approximately thirty more seconds, because then he checked his Twitter and saw that Harry talented and beautiful motherfucking Styles had replied to his DM with the eloquent response, “Nothing much! How are you?”

Louis wanted to get those words stenciled on a pillowcase or something so he could sleep on them forever. He wasn't sure if he could do that right now, so instead he took a shower and masturbated before getting dressed and meandering through the apartment. He kind of forgot he lived with Niall sometimes, because Niall like, went to classes occasionally and had a shit ton of friends and such, whereas Louis was a gargoyle who apparently only left his bedroom to record videos and complain to Niall about Zayn. Louis was becoming Zayn, actually. It was scary and not arousing, Louis told his dick stubbornly. Niall was humming something soft and pretty while strumming along on his guitar, so Louis sat down next to him, kicking at Niall's leg softly.

“Harry Styles from the X Factor followed me on Instagram and Twitter,” Louis announced. Niall threw him an unimpressed look.

“I know that,” Niall replied, going back to humming. Now that Louis was listening closer, it sounded a lot like Janelle Monae's “Electric Lady.” Louis should record a video of himself pussy popping to that, while Niall played the guitar shirtless in the background, maybe. Louis made a quick note in his phone, before turning back to Niall.

“How do you know that? Do you stalk all my social media channels, too?”

Niall put down his guitar and tilted his head to stare at Louis. “No? I just happened to check my timeline this morning, and saw that you were tweeting about it at five AM. Do you not even read what you're tweeting?”

Louis wasn't sure if he should answer with the truth, which was “No,” so he just grabbed his car keys and went to Starbucks.

 

Louis was sitting at Starbucks, drinking his second frap, when his phone started blaring Zayn's ringtone, which he had recently changed to Drake's “All Me,” specifically the part where Big Sean yelled, “Hoe, shut the fuck up!” Louis answered promptly, playing with his straw. “Good morning, dearest, Zayn. How are you?”

“It's like, six o'clock in the evening,” Zayn replied. “I'm hungover and at least I know _that_. Also, I'm staring at the back of your head right now. Turn around.”

Louis turned around, and indeed, Zayn was standing in line near the cash register. Louis frowned. “Do you work here?” he asked, hanging up. “Also, you could've just like, come up to me. Didn't need to use data or minutes or whatever.”

Zayn pulled a face. He was even more gorgeous in person and Louis wanted to drag him into the bathroom and do filthy things to his face. Like stick his dick in Zayn's mouth. Over and over again. Slowly, then fast, then slowly again. Run the tip over Zayn's bottom lip, maybe. And then punch Zayn, because he deserved it for never taking Louis rollerskating.

“I don't work here,” Zayn answered, moving forward in the line. “I don't work anywhere.”

“Well, you're working my last nerve,” Louis said brightly. “Let's have sex.”

Zayn sighed, turning to the barista now that he was at the front of the line with an embarrassed expression.

 

Zayn apparently lived a block away from Starbucks, which meant he lived three blocks away from Louis, since Louis lived two blocks away from Starbucks in the other direction, which meant they were both stupid. Louis gave Zayn a ride back home, even though Zayn could've walked, since it was only a fucking block, and flirted with him outrageously, and then Louis parked in the garage, and Zayn flirted back, and then Louis semi jokingly offered Zayn $150 for a blowjob and Zayn turned him down because he was meeting up with that boxer later and he wasn't a prostitute which like, okay Louis wasn't either but he'd had sex with this hot English guy one time for Nando's when he was finding himself by apparently fucking hot English people across the United Kingdom, so, like. He wasn't sure what he was trying to say, but Zayn didn't look offended, just kind of upset that Louis wasn't waiting around patiently while Zayn fucked his way through his Snapchat list. Louis drove back home and thought about tugging the monkey some more, but instead he got drunk off Smirnoff Ice and recorded a video of himself singing Justin Bieber's “Hold Tight” while Niall strummed along shirtless in the background, and he dedicated it to Zayn, and he might've changed the last chorus to, “Lemme fuck your face!” but he uploaded it anyway, because whatever. Someone would think it was funny. Not his Grandma, maybe, but _someone_.

Louis had almost forgotten about Harry, actually, because he was too busy making an ass out of himself on the Internet, and his mom was probably going to call him and ask him why he was making an ass out of himself on the Internet, but then Louis went on Twitter and checked his DM's and Harry had sent him another one – “Nice Justin cover.”

Louis wanted to die, so he just kind of typed out, “@HarryStyles Should've dedicated it to you instead, my friend is a prick” and then threw his phone on the floor before going to bed.

 

Louis woke up to the discovery that he had actually tweeted that instead of sending it as a DM and he had like forty voicemails from Zayn and a bunch more followers than he did yesterday, and that was cool but overall he felt awful and hungover and Smirnoff tasted so bad when you were puking so he flushed the toilet, brushed his teeth, and went back to sleep.


	2. Chapter Two: Twitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It wasn't his birthday, but he was drunk and had been sporting a semi for a minute, so Louis recorded himself grinding the floor to Rihanna's “Birthday Cake” cuz he motherfucking could, okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three things:  
> 1) Today is my birthday and I spent it trying to finish this chapter of ridiculousness, which says something about me, I'm sure.  
> 2) Thanks to Frida for the beta read, you are amazing and I love you.  
> 3) I tried to introduce more Larry, but the Zouis is strong. I'm sorry.

Louis felt vaguely idiotic. It wasn’t a completely unfamiliar feeling, but Louis would’ve rather felt something else, something more positive, definitely, particularly since he wasn’t sure how Harry, the love of his life, perfection personified Styles would react to his dumbass behavior. Was Harry all right with Louis fucking up and making this thing public? Was Harry that famous that he wouldn’t want to be associated with some weird college student who humped furniture and apparently changed the lyrics of Justin Bieber Music Monday songs to something filthy and then dedicated it to his best friend? Although Harry did follow Louis first, maybe Harry was the weird one. Louis wasn’t sure.

He got up to puke again and grimaced because it was nothing but bile, flushing the toilet and brushing his teeth, before making his way to the kitchen. Niall was sitting in the living room, face screwed up in concentration as he frantically erased all of his homework, so Louis crawled into his lap to distract him.

“Pay attention to me, I am on my deathbed,” Louis whined, knocking Niall’s Calculus textbook onto the ground. Niall didn’t need Calculus. Calculus was evil, Louis was doing Niall a favor.

“You’re not on your deathbed,” Niall replied easily, putting the textbook on the coffee table and patting Louis’ head. “You’re just an idiot. Have you checked Zayn’s voicemails?”

“How do you know Zayn has left me voicemails, plural?”

Niall shrugged. “Drake has been playing out of your bedroom for like, the last twelve hours.”

Louis hummed and grabbed his laptop off the coffee table. He wasn’t sure how it had got there, since last he had seen it, it had been in his bed, but whatever. He opened up what he referred to as the “Sources of my Imminent Destruction” window in Chrome, where he had Zayn’s Tumblr and Instagram, and Harry’s everything – Twitter, band Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, and secret Facebook page that Louis had miraculously found. Louis had gone through the secret Facebook page’s secret friends, and saw a not so secret Zayn which like – how? But he tried not to think about it too much. He’d ask Zayn about it once he stopped feeling guilty.

“When are you going to call Zayn?” Niall asked, because he was psychic or something. Niall was Irish, had met Louis during a music theory class at the local community college, but whereas Niall had since transferred to UCLA, Louis was still stuck doing fuck all with his life. That was fine, it gave Louis hope that one day he could aspire to grumbling loudly and driving in shit traffic to get a degree he didn't even want anything to do with. But that was besides the point – Niall was Irish, and it was weird that he was even in LA, but Louis had a theory that he proclaimed loudly to strangers whenever he was drunk that Niall was a leprechaun with a pot of gold somewhere in the apartment which was why he could afford UCLA's tuition. Louis also thought Niall was psychic. He wasn't sure how those things were connected, actually.

“I'm calling Zayn never,” Louis announced, scrolling through Zayn's Tumblr and wondering how it was even possible that he wanted to fuck someone as far up in his own ass as Zayn was. It was like whatever o'clock and Zayn had already posted a pic of his Jordan's and like three selfies and a few self pitying text posts. Louis hoped they were all in reference to his accidental tweet, but they were probably about like, grabbing the wrong bottle of hair gel, because Zayn didn't have feelings. Zayn was a robot. It was proven. It was science.

“Zayn is not a robot,” Niall said, scrolling through his phone with a frown on his face.

“Stop reading my mind,” Louis snapped.

“It's not reading your mind, you literally just posted it on Twitter, you tagged Zayn's handle and everything,” Niall replied. “Do you honestly not know what you are posting half the time?”

Louis really didn't want to crush Niall with the truth, so he grabbed his keys and went to Chipotle instead.

 

Louis was scrolling through his phone while eating chips, salsa and a carnitas burrito when someone sat in the chair across from him. Louis looked up from his phone with a frown that only became more pronounced when he saw that it was Zayn.

“Stop stalking my life,” Louis mumbled. “And don't eat my chips.”

Zayn shrugged as he shoved a tortilla chip into his mouth. “Don't check in on Yelp until after you leave and then it won't be so easy. Why haven't you answered my calls?”

“Because I'm avoiding you,” Louis answered. “Now go away, so I can keep doing that, thank you.”

Zayn leveled Louis with a cool stare. It was probably supposed to be terrifying, but mainly it just made Louis very horny. The bastard was just so fucking good-looking – his skateboard was sitting on the chair next to him, and he was wearing an oversized Obey sweatshirt and board shorts, and his hair was a fucking mess, all tangled and a large clump of it was sticking up in the back, but Louis still wanted to put his dick in Zayn's mouth. Repeatedly. Maybe coerce Zayn to lick around his balls, too, although Zayn didn't have to. Definitely had to have that mouth around his tip, though. But like – it wasn't fair. Louis was almost positive he didn't have this effect on people – like yeah, sometimes people were like, “Yo, I really want to fuck your face,” but those people were rare and actually rather far between, in that nobody had ever said that to him. Most of the time people just kind of said, “You have a nice ass, let me put my hands on it,” and that was fine, and how it generally went, in that that's how it always went, but you know, Louis realized that he was kind of a beauty in his own right, so he felt that more people should be rendered speechless by his amazing-ness, to be honest. And like, Louis was constantly rendered speechless when he thought about Zayn, unless he was at home and his bedroom door was locked, and he had kicked off his boxers and got a solid hand around himself, then he wasn't so much speechless as fucking incoherent with how much he needed to fuck Zayn.

Zayn was looking between Louis and his giant ass Samsung Galaxy wannabe old school Dell laptop of a phone with a look of vague terror. “Do you really not realize that sometimes you are not quietly thinking to yourself but actually talking out loud? Or even worse, _livetweeting your thoughts_? Because I really didn't need to know all of that, Louis.”

“'Course you did,” Louis replied. “Just lemme – c'mon, just _once_.”

“It'll ruin our friendship,” Zayn said, almost earnestly. “I fuck up everything, Louis. You're the one good thing in my life. I can't.”

“All I heard was, 'Blah blah blah I'm fucking everyone but you, Louis,'” Louis said, finishing off the rest of his burrito and throwing the aluminum foil at Zayn's head. “Harry wouldn't turn me down. I really should've dedicated that video to him.”

Zayn went vaguely pink. It was a good look on him – Louis just wished he had fucked that look onto his face, as opposed to like, insulting him. “So are we going to talk about Harry then?”

“No,” Louis pouted. “I'm avoiding you.”

“How are you going to fuck me if you're avoiding me?”

Louis felt his face light up as he lurched forward. “Is that an offer or a promise, and either way can I get it in writing?”

“Neither.”

Louis sat back in his seat and glared at Zayn. “You're the worst and I hate you.”

Zayn shrugged. “I just – I really don't want to hurt you, babe.”

“You're hurting me every day that you're not fucking me,” Louis replied. “I have a permanent case of blue balls.”

Zayn sighed, running his hand through the messy hair at the back of his head. “We literally only met in real life yesterday. Like, were you always this impossible? I just – can we talk about this? I don't want things to be weird between us.”

“I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really don't want to.”

“But like – ”

“Nope.”

Zayn rested his head on his hand and appeared to be weighing something. Louis stared at him blankly in between too large bites of chips and salsa and obnoxious slurps of soda.

“What about – ” Zayn started before cutting himself off abruptly.

“You were going to say something about sex,” Louis clapped gleefully. “Oh my God, you totally want me to suck you off.”

“ _What_?” Zayn asked weakly, stealing another chip from Louis.

“I could do it,” Louis continued. “I'm gagging for it. I'm a total cockslut – I even put it on my resume.” That wasn't even a lie. Louis had listed “cockslut” as one of his skills, but that was when he was contemplating dropping out of school to pursue a career in bisexual pornography. He was still considering dropping out of school to pursue a career in bisexual pornography, actually, if this whole community college, Internet famous, and ideally fucking Zayn and Harry on the regular thing didn't work out, which was why it was still on his resume.

Zayn sighed and banged his head against the table. “I honestly came here to talk to you – ”

“Might like you better,” Louis crooned in his best imitation of Amanda Blank, “if we slept together.”

“Stop.”

“Let's get together, baby, wanna hold you, get to know you – ”

“Louis – ”

“Amanda Blank not your thing, then?” Louis asked, sighing. “How about 2 Chainz? Let's make a sex tape and put it on Netflix.”

“I'm going home.” And with that Zayn stood up, grabbed his skateboard in one hand and a handful of chips in the other, and left. But he totally was flying a flag at half mast in his board shorts. Louis counted it as a small victory.

 

Louis realized that Zayn was really rubbing off on him because Louis went home and got fucking smashed off of some Ketel One that he had been keeping for a special occasion in the back of his freezer. It wasn't his birthday, but he was drunk and had been sporting a semi for a minute, so Louis recorded himself grinding the floor to Rihanna's “Birthday Cake” cuz he motherfucking could, okay, and maybe he grabbed himself a little too much before he got on the floor, and after he got up, but whatever, it was his dick, he could palm it and record himself doing so if he wanted to. His grandma wouldn't be proud, but she should get off the Internet and go watch 60 Minutes or some shit. Whatever, Louis was drunk. Then he sent the link to Harry, because Harry was hot and Louis wanted to lick the icing off of Harry's dick. He probably typed as much, but was too fucked up to check. He also tried to make a point of sending it as a direct message and not a regular tweet, but it was already on YouTube, maybe Harry had a subscription, fuck it. Then Louis made himself another drink and logged onto Skype, sending Zayn a text on WhatsApp saying that he was ready to talk.

“You're drunk,” Zayn had said, and he sounded kind of disappointed.

“You're drunk too, you gorgeous pain in the ass,” Louis retorted, because Zayn was, if the over the top pouting and half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting next to him on the bed was any indication. And he was also shirtless, which like – wow, how dare he. “That was enough talking, my dear Zayn,” Louis proclaimed. “Now get your dick out.”

Zayn promptly hung up and Louis lamented the sad trajectory of his adult life before attempting to jack off and falling asleep before he finished.

 

Louis awoke to the realization that it was Saturday, his boxers were half on around his thighs and he had precome all over his sheets. It took a few more minutes before he discovered that he had several direct messages from Harry Styles – one of them being a phone number, an invitation to call, and a winky face.

Louis felt a brief moment of pride before falling out of bed in his haste to puke.

 

Louis didn't actually feel too bad after he vomited, probably because he was a big boy now and had graduated from his youthful days of being 17, stupid, broke, and involved in a one-sided, jealous relationship with raspberry flavored Smirnoff into one where he was 21, stupid, a little better paid, and involved in a one-sided jealous relationship with other types of slightly superior liquor. He went into the kitchen and made himself some toast, and decided to go down to 24 Hour Fitness to work out, which mostly meant he sat on the elliptical for a bit, sent a few inane text messages to Harry Styles because he _could_ now, and listened to Arctic Monkeys, pedaling aggressively whenever anyone looked at him sideways. He did that for about an hour or so before realizing that he was really fucking hungry and fucking hated the gym so he hopped into his car and headed to McDonald's, ordering an Angus bacon cheeseburger for himself and about twenty other things off the dollar menu for Niall. He was taking a bit of a scenic way back home because there was some sort of accident on Santa Monica Boulevard, when he looked over and saw Zayn skateboarding on the sidewalk.

Somehow, Louis resisted the urge to pull over, luring Zayn into the car with the offer of a decent conversation and McDonald's. It was a near thing. Louis placated himself by munching on some fries.

 

Louis contemplated not drinking again that night, but ended up opening up some beer and trolling chat rooms at something like five PM anyway. He was thinking about getting another beer when his phone vibrated with a text from Zayn – “I know you still don't wanna talk, but I've got us on the VIP list at an event Harry is going to be at xx.”

Louis immediately called Zayn back, because normally Zayn didn't text Louis about events that occurred outside of either of their apartments, and normally Zayn didn't answer phone calls promptly, after one fucking ring, either. Everything was abnormal these days.

“Babe,” Zayn answered, his voice sighing around the word. “You got my text.”

"Obviously," Louis said, his knee already bouncing in excitement. "How did you manage to get us on the list? How did you know where Harry would be? How is it that you are willing to leave the house?”

“I'm actually Facebook friends with Harry – ”

“I know.”

“– And he invited me, told me to bring you along. Wait, how do you know that?”

“I am a premiere internet stalker, Zayn.”

Zayn laughed and Louis could only imagine how good he looked – eyes scrunched up, tongue pushing against the back of his teeth, eyes the warm hazel of whiskey – it was too much, Louis was going to die from lust.

“How could I ever forget, huh, Lou?” Zayn said, the smile still evident in his voice. “Well, I can't drive, obviously, but like, maybe you could come over and I'll call us a cab?”

“Is that an offer to have sex before the cab comes?” Louis asked hopefully.

“Maybe one day, babe,” Zayn replied. Louis wasn't patient, but he was clearly wearing Zayn down, and he was willing to keep at it.

 

The event was at a sweaty, overpriced, hipster club. Louis hated it, and he could tell that Zayn did, too – they both spent too much time lying about in their boxers to be impressed with loud music, people who “ironically” danced to Ke$ha and $15 cocktails. A girl led them to the VIP section, which was essentially empty at that point in time, and came over with a free bottle of Grey Goose. Louis was all for dancing around like a dick to pop music, but he was still too wound up with sexual frustration because Zayn was right next to him, swaying awkwardly and looking way too fucking good in a leather jacket, snapback, and Jordan's, so Louis decided to get smashed instead, and Zayn was right there, matching him shot for shot, because Zayn was basically an alcoholic. It was great, and Louis was feeling great, and so he leaned in to kiss Zayn, who was great, and Zayn opened up under him enthusiastically, putting his hands on Louis' hips and digging his fingers in, which was so great it bordered on fantastic – and then Zayn was gone.

“Noooooo,” Louis moaned, because time had stopped moving in ways that made sense and there was now a ton of people in VIP but none of them were Zayn. One of them did appear to be Harry Styles though, so Louis glided over, because when you're drunk you either glide or kinda flop about, and Louis was more of a glide type of guy.

“'Sup, Harry,” Louis said by way of introduction. “I'm Louis, and I'm drunk.”

“I know,” Harry replied, and wow, he was really fucking attractive in person, he had fucking dimples and he was really fucking tall, and his curls were perfect, and he smelled like money, and money smelled like sex, and so Louis just kinda leaned in to kiss Harry, and Harry kinda laughed into Louis' mouth but it wasn't like he was pushing Louis away, kind of the opposite, actually, as Harry wrapped his arm around Louis' neck and pulled him closer.

“Well, all right then,” a voice came from somewhere behind Louis. Harry pulled back and Louis tried to chase his mouth but the voice cleared its throat which meant Louis should probably deal with that or something, not that he wanted to.

And it was Zayn of course, mumbling something under the heavy bass of the music, “I just went to get some water, but I'll leave you two to it or whatever – ” and Zayn looked _hurt_ for some reason, but that was stupid, and Louis didn't understand, wanted to kiss that expression off Zayn's face and then maybe kiss Harry's face and then have a threesome –

 

That was kind of the last thing Louis remembered. He woke up feeling absolutely disgusting, hurting in strange places, in a bed that was way too nice to be his own, smashed in between two heavy, sweaty, unmoving bodies. Louis groaned, shuffling a bit and grimacing when his shirt scrunched up and rubbed against what looked to be a monster bruise on his hip. One of the bodies beside him stirred, turning over to fling an arm around Louis' midsection. Louis didn't need to move the sweat plastered curls back from the forehead to know it was Harry Styles.

And by logical extension, the dark haired, tattooed menace whose leg was thrown over Louis' was Zayn.

Fuck, if Louis had had a threesome with Zayn and Harry and couldn't even remember it, he would be so pissed.

 


	3. Chapter Three: In-N-Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was an email from one hstyles94@gmail.com with the subject title “Enjoy ;)”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Frida for reading this over and calling me a massive failure because there isn't enough Larry. 
> 
> This chapter is short because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with this fic so I kind of just gave up around the end. Also I'm really hungry and want In-N-Out.
> 
> Sexy time scene in this chapter inspired by the tags for this [photoset](http://mindizmyspear.tumblr.com/post/66949039805/harrythighles-you-know-harry-opens-photo-booth) and a subsequent Twitter conversation between Crystal, Frida, and myself. 
> 
> Also heed the tags! There's some weird shit in this chapter.

It would be something like another hour before Harry woke up. By that point, Louis had already slipped from under Harry's outstretched arm, gone to the bathroom and marveled at a giant blooming bruise on his side, and meandered through the entire house looking for some Tylenol for his massive fucking headache. It was obvious that they were at Harry's because it was a fucking house, not some shit college student's apartment. It wasn't like it was a mansion, though, but still a house nonetheless, modestly sized for rockstar LA standards but equipped with a pool out back and a laundry room downstairs. There wasn't a whole lot of furniture, almost like Harry had just moved in recently and was buying furniture as he went forward, but there was framed artwork propped up everywhere, and Louis stopped to marvel at them – an intricate painting of a cat, a giant picture of Big Ben in London, some abstract shit that Louis couldn't even pretend to appreciate. It was nice, really fucking nice. Louis wanted to move in himself, wanted to help Harry pick out furniture and hang up all of the artwork and just play house or whatever.

Louis finally found some Tylenol in one of the bathrooms downstairs, but it only aggravated his stomach and he threw up, arm braced over the toilet and tears running down his face because he just felt so bad and he was never, ever touching alcohol again, unless someone got him a Bloody Mary right the fuck now so he could take the edge off.

Louis made his way back upstairs, wincing as he made his way up because he was still feeling sore in really weird places, but he hesitated in the threshold of Harry's bedroom where he had left the door ajar. Zayn and Harry had moved closer together in their sleep, Harry positioned behind Zayn as they spooned and it was – Louis wasn't sure how he felt, really, whether he wanted to turn around and leave because he still had a headache and his tummy was making weird flippy movements and he suddenly needed a good cry, or if he wanted to get in the middle and demand that they both wake up and pay attention to him, or if he wanted to push Zayn away from Harry and yell, “Mine!” or push Harry away from Zayn and yell, “Mine!” or just – he really didn't know..

Louis wasn't used to having so many conflicting feelings at once and it was making him feel nauseous so he ran to the bathroom again. When he came back, Harry was sitting up in the bed looking at Louis, his face scrunched up with concern and ugh, Louis wanted to appreciate it but he couldn't, not with the way bile was threatening to climb up his throat again, not with the way Zayn was still basically half in Harry's lap.

“You okay, love?” Harry asked, voice cracked and soft from sleep. “You drank a lot last night.”

“Guess I did,” Louis mumbled, walking further into the room and sitting delicately at the foot of Harry's bed, as far away from both of them as he could. “I've been puking all morning and I'm hurting all over.”

Harry snorted a bit. “Yeah, ah, I forgot about that. You fell over at the club and then again in the gutter when we were trying to get you into a cab. I don't have a bed in my guest room yet so I just brought you in here to sleep it off. Zayn keeled over on your side about as soon as we got here and I'm not gonna sleep on my own couch so – here ya go.”

Louis couldn't help the pout that appeared on his face, because – fucking seriously? “We didn't have a threesome?”

Harry looked vaguely bewildered. “Um, no? I was afraid that you had alcohol poisoning, you were so far gone – I'm all about safe, consensual sex.”

“But you would?” Louis clarified. “Because you're so hot and amazing and talented – like, I want to. So badly. So. You would have safe, consensual sex with me?”

“Yes.”

“And with Zayn too?”

Harry smiled, and God Louis was so, so fucked. “Yeah, I would. He's hot, yeah?”

“Yeah, but don't let him hear you say that, he's got a big enough ego as it is. So like – a threesome would be totally within the realm of reason?”

Harry shrugged. Louis beamed. Zayn woke up long enough to throw a shoe at Louis and tell him to shut the fuck up.

 

Louis got ready to go home, still really disappointed that he literally only fucking slept in a bed, no penetration involved, with two of the hottest guys he had ever fucking encountered. It was frustrating. Louis had far more game than this – he was sure he did, but then Louis was hit with another round of nausea and had to rush to the bathroom to puke up the pancakes Harry had made him, which was so far from awesome that Louis wanted to cry again.

“I'm going to make sure you get home in one piece,” Zayn said, standing over Louis in the bathroom and running his hands through Louis' hair. Normally Louis would not be here for that, the hair touching thing because he spent a lot of time, money, and effort making sure his fringe looked bomb, but he wasn't feeling good, and he looked like shit, and Zayn was touching him and Louis would've preferred for it to be Harry because things with Harry were easy and things with Zayn were all hard as in Louis was starting to swell up even though he was leaning over a toilet bowl and nothing about this scenario was sexy.

“Mrgh,” Louis answered, which Zayn apparently took as confirmation of – Louis wasn't sure what. Harry called Zayn and Louis a cab and handed over a fifty dollar bill which was like, what the fuck who even carries fifties those things are useless as shit, Benjamins or bust, and that was way more than what their ride was gonna cost, but like, okay sure, Harry was loaded, Zayn and Louis were both basically unemployed, they weren't gonna turn down money. Louis still felt like shit so he put his head into Zayn's lap and briefly fell asleep until they reached Louis' apartment building. Louis stumbled out and somehow made his way to his unit while Zayn paid the driver. For some dumbass reason, Niall wasn't in – maybe he had class? Although Louis could've sworn it was Saturday . . . maybe Niall had a date? Or was hanging out with his other, clearly less awesome friends? Louis didn't know, couldn't be assed to care too much at the moment, just made his way to his bedroom, shedding clothes along the way to his mattress, where he collapsed gracelessly on top of the comforter. Zayn followed Louis in and hovered indecisively by the door.

“Come cuddle, at least?” Louis mumbled around a mouthful of pillow. Louis couldn't see Zayn's shrug, but he could imagine it, and counted it as another small victory when the bed dipped and Zayn spooned up along the planes of Louis' back. Louis fell asleep with a smile on his face.

 

Louis woke up at around four PM. Zayn was snaked around him, arm thrown over Louis' middle,and Louis resolutely did not think about his weird “wouldn't it be kinda awesome to fuck Zayn while he's asleep” fetish and instead crawled out of bed, padding his way through the apartment looking for his laptop. Niall still wasn't in, and Louis wasn't used to his apartment being so quiet on a Saturday night, or whatever day it was. Louis finally found his laptop in the bathroom cabinet, in the big space underneath the sink, and made his way back to his room, flopping back onto the bed. Zayn immediately became an octopus around Louis again, plastering his front along Louis' side and sighing contentedly in his sleep.

Louis opened up his browser and checked his “Sources of my Imminent Destruction” window in Chrome before remembering that Zayn was right next to him and that there wouldn't exactly be many updates on Zayn's Tumblr since Zayn had been asleep next to Louis all day anyway, which should've made Louis happy instead of just really fucking frustrated with life because why was Zayn so fucking tired _when he hadn't even had sex with Louis._

Louis checked his Twitter, scrolling through a lot of useless DM's before noticing that he had one from Harry – a simple “check your email xx.”

Louis was 100% sure he had never sent Harry his email, and he was unsure as to which email Harry was even referring to, since Louis had about ten different ones. Apparently Harry meant his second Gmail account because there was an email from one hstyles94@gmail.com with the subject title “Enjoy ;)”

Louis opened it up and there was an .mov attached. Louis waited for it to load while tweeting about how he was never going to drink again unless it meant that he would wake up to Zayn and a giant bruise on his side – aha let Zayn deal with the fallout from that – and then clicked on the file when it was finally fucking done.

For some reason Louis had assumed that it would be a video of Harry singing him a sappy song, maybe one by Taylor Swift – she had catchy tunes. Harry _was_ a musician and all that. He probably did serenade people occasionally. Like, Louis totally did not think about the possibility of nakedness. Maybe it was because he had been trying to get Zayn naked for ages and it hadn't been working, and he literally just met Harry yesterday, which like, all right that doesn't mean a whole lot when all you want is to get someone face down, ass up in your bed, but at the same time, Louis really liked Harry. He was nothing like Zayn – he wasn't endlessly frustrating, he wasn't hot and cold, just really fucking hot, and he had cooked Louis pancakes this morning. Fucking pancakes. Louis wanted to get to know Harry, get him off, and then have a fucking wedding in San Francisco, maybe adopt a few babies.

And the video Harry sent him – oh my God.

Harry was clearly in his bedroom, lying on the bed that Louis had just been in a few hours ago, and Harry wasn't wearing any clothes, and his dick was huge and thick, Louis wanted to choke on it so badly that he actually kind of had difficulty breathing for a few seconds. The quality was shit, but Louis could see the thin sheen of sweat on Harry's chest, the way Harry's curls were damp along his forehead, and he could imagine the goosebumps on Harry's arms. The computer was pushed at the foot of Harry's bed but the positioning was great, and as someone who recorded himself jacking off regularly in preparation for his career in bisexual adult entertainment, Louis was impressed with the amateur porn quality of it all.

Harry was leaning back against a shit ton of pillows and had a hand wrapped around his cock, smirking at the camera as he stroked himself. “I know you aren't feeling good, Louis, so I'm gonna make you feel better, all right?” he mumbled, _the bastard_ , and then he got to work. It was so hot, Louis couldn't remember the last time someone had sent him something so absolutely filthy, nothing but the sound of Harry's grunts as he worked himself, pumping into his own fist lazily. Louis wondered distantly how much trouble Harry would get into if this leaked, and it only turned Louis on more, knowing that Harry would risk that just to make Louis feel better.

Louis was really getting into the video, mainly because of the the unapologetically filthy sounds Harry was making as he pulled himself off, and Louis went to shove his own pants down to get a hand around himself when he remembered – Zayn was still asleep and half on top of him. Louis paused the video and cursed under his breath. He pushed at Zayn a little bit – Louis wasn't sure why, wasn't sure if he wanted Zayn to leave, or to help him get off, or what, but either way, Zayn didn't stir, only gripped Louis closer and mumbled something unintelligible, rubbing a bit against Louis' leg.

Well, it wasn't like he didn't try, Louis thought, pushing his pants off and turning Harry's video back on just as Harry made another long, keening sound. “Louis,” Harry moaned, gripping himself tight at the base and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Don't come, don't come,” Louis chanted to himself as Harry continued to grip the bottom of his dick, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Harry let go of his cock and it fell against his stomach wetly before reaching across himself for a bottle on the other side of the bed. Harry drizzled lube on his fingers before skittering his hand past his dick. “Oh God,” Louis croaked. “Oh God, oh God, I'm going to hell.”

Harry's mouth fell open as he worked one finger, and then another, inside, pumping himself slowly, curling his toes and making those same high, breathy noises that were going to be the cause of Louis' premature death, probably. Louis looked over and Zayn was still asleep – which shouldn't be possible, Harry was being _so loud_ – and just as Louis' gaze made its way back to his computer screen, Harry was coming, his body curled around himself almost like his orgasm was wretched out of him. All that from a few fingers – Louis was impressed and so fucking hard that he couldn't even think straight, only knew that he had to watch the video again.

 

Louis watched the video three more times before he finally let himself come, and when he did he some landed on Zayn's arm, and the motherfucker still didn't stir. Louis was disgusted with himself for jacking off next to a friend, and coming on a friend while they were asleep. Louis was pretty sure this was firmly in the “not okay” category, and he was sure that there was a special place in hell for behavior like this, but he resisted the urge to take a picture of Zayn while he was asleep with Louis' come on him, so there was that, at least. Louis got a wash cloth and wiped the spunk off of Zayn's arm and figured that In-N-Out would make him feel better, and that the smell of hamburgers would probably wake Zayn up, too. So he pulled on some sweatpants, jammed a beanie over his head, and set out.

 

Louis sent a DM to Harry once he got back to the apartment. Zayn was indeed lured into the world of the living with the smell of hamburgers, so he joined Louis in the living room, smiling shyly while he ate his french fries and making Louis feel a bit disoriented. Louis turned back to his cell phone and typed out, “I would send you a video, but how about I just show you what I can do in real time?” hitting send to one Harry Styles before giving himself the opportunity to over-analyze it and chicken out.

 

That night, neither Zayn nor Louis could sleep and Niall still wasn't back at their apartment, so Zayn ran back to his place to get a pipe and some weed and they hotboxed Louis' living room and filmed themselves dancing to Usher. Louis did a really quick and dirty editing job and uploaded it to YouTube, and Zayn looked so pleased with the end product that Louis just leaned in and pressed a quick peck to Zayn's mouth. Zayn didn't seem too upset with Louis for it, so Louis leaned in again – he could always just be like, “Whatever I was high,” later on if he needed to – and this time Zayn met him and like, they kind of made out for a while, unhurriedly, just some kissing between bros, until Zayn pulled away and said he was hungry again, so they went back to In N Out and Louis had to pretend as though he wasn't a little bit confused about the way his love life was going.

 

 


	4. Chapter Four: Segway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn shrugged again. He did that a lot, that and staring off into the distance, and getting fidgety when he was uncomfortable. For someone who pretended to be fucking mysterious, Zayn was really easy to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this chapter is a few days late - I'm blaming 1D Day, the release of Midnight Memories, and this thing I've got called a "job." Yes, I wrote this chapter while sick and slightly delirious. Yes, I'm posting it at six in the morning. Yes, Frida continues to be an amazing beta.

Louis decided to go back to class for a few days before he got bored with that and concluded that either a life of unemployment or adult entertainment were in the cards for him. He sat around in his boxers and spent most of his mornings on Tumblr, wondering where his damn roommate was. Niall had been out a lot more lately, hanging out with stupid people that weren't Louis, and Louis was resolutely not jealous, especially not when Zayn was coming over to the apartment a lot lately, arriving on his skateboard with a stupid snapback or a stupid beanie on his head, so fucking good-looking when Louis had never given him permission to be, the rude motherfucker. And like, it was just all really nice. Zayn was still being a massive fucking tease, turning down all of Louis' sexual advances, but he was up for a good makeout session every so often, making these soft, pleased noises when Louis combed his fingers through Zayn's hair or pressed his palm under the hem of Zayn's T-shirt, and Louis could be patient – he was going to fucking _ruin_ Zayn one of these days, he just had to wear him down first.

If Louis discovered bruises on Zayn's hip, noticed hickies on his collarbone – well. Louis just tried not to think about it too much. Like, Louis knew that Zayn was seeing other people, would have to be fucking blind not to notice that shit, and Zayn was constantly “accidentally” sending Louis Snaps that were meant for other people (really how many times do you send a picture of you holding your erect dick through some boxers, or God forbid a Snap of your whole fucking cock, before you fucking learn better, Louis knew Zayn was just being an awful _tease_ of a human being again). But back on topic – Louis was convinced that Zayn was honestly trying to fuck his way through all of his Snapchat contacts. But that wasn't the end of it, either – Zayn had boys and girls throwing themselves at him on Tumblr and Instagram and Twitter and that was fine, Louis understood the struggle of being desperately good-looking and Internet famous, but like, Zayn actually took people up on their offers, whereas Louis had never quite built up the nerve, too terrified of contracting something or getting kidnapped or having videos of himself all over Pornhub when he hadn't even gotten paid for it. Louis saw all the Twitlongers, saw how girls boasted about fucking that good-looking guy from Tumblr, how boys posted pictures where they were wearing their love bites from Zayn like a fucking badge of honor. Louis wasn't jealous (he was).

And they were in a completely new space in their friendship – it was one thing to hit on your friend all the time and to occasionally receive Snaps of said friend's penis, and a whole other thing to bribe him into having sex with you, but Louis knew that he was inching into even more dangerous territory right now, now that he knew what the inside of Zayn's mouth tasted like and what his dick felt like through a pair of jeans when they were making out, and more than that, Louis knew that he was probably a bit in love with Zayn, definitely fucking infatuated, obsessed with his smile and his eyes and his laugh and the way he was always down for a good prank.

Louis wondered when his life had gotten so fucking dumb, or if it was always really fucking dumb and he was just too busy humping furniture to realize it fully.

 

Louis hadn't heard much from Harry over the past few days but Louis had followed several Harry Styles update accounts on Twitter and gathered that it was probably because Harry had been damn near living in the studio, girls posting pictures of him and his bandmate, Liam, arriving every day around seven in the morning and not leaving until well past midnight. One night, a particularly bold pap asked Harry about the album, and Harry just fucking beamed, saying, “Been writing a bunch of flirty love songs,” before winking at the camera and making his way into a waiting Escalade. Louis' heart stuttered and he screamed a bit into his pillow, wondering if it was stupid to hope that one, if not all, of those songs were about him.

“I'm madly in love with Harry Styles,” Louis announced into his cell phone. He wasn't entirely sure why he had called Zayn to tell him this, but Zayn had picked up like the idiot he was, so it was Zayn's fault if Louis said anything stupid.

“Are you now?” Zayn replied. There was a bit of noise in the background, too discordant for Louis to make out.

“Yes, you know it to be true, look inside your heart,” Louis answered. “Where the fuck are you? It's loud.”

“Oh, just give me a min,” Zayn mumbled and Louis could hear a bit of shuffling, the sound of a door closing, and then silence. “Is this better?”

“Unbelievably. Where are you?” Zayn muttered something unintelligible and Louis sighed. “Are you coming over later?”

“Nah, I'm over at a friend's studio right now.”

Louis scoffed. “You don't have any friends.”

Zayn hung up and Louis frowned at his phone for betraying him before punching out a text message to Harry instead – “I miss u sending me vids of u jacking off =(“

Harry's response came almost instantaneously – “You could always send me a video while you're waiting for mine haha xx” and then, quickly after, “I'm having a BBQ this weekend, are you going to come over?”

Louis openly screamed at his phone, recording an audio file of himself doing it and promptly sending it to Harry before tweeting about how awesome his life was, all because of the amazing Harry Styles, with no thanks to Zayn.

 

Harry's house looked different now that Louis wasn't drunk. “Your house looks a lot different now that I'm not drunk,” Louis announced once Harry had thrown his front door open. Harry had told Louis to bring friends, but Louis wasn't entirely sure if he even had friends, so he just brought Niall. Louis had invited Zayn too, of course, but Zayn had just pulled away from Louis and made a face. “Are you really thinking about Harry's fucking BBQ while we're kissing?” he had asked, and Louis had shrugged because like, _obviously,_ before leaning back in, pushing Zayn against his couch cushions and grinding down. Later Zayn had mumbled something about how he was already going to be at Harry's house that weekend, which didn't really make a lot of sense to Louis, but whatever, he wasn't going to push it.

Harry smiled brightly at the sight of Louis on his doorstep before graciously throwing his front door back and gesturing inward. Harry led them through the living room, past the kitchen, and finally to his backyard. The pool was rather crowded with hipsters, who were Louis' least favorite type of people, but Harry had set up a table that was seemingly groaning underneath the weight of food and alcohol. Louis sat his own bottle of Jack Daniel's – a present that Niall and Louis had grabbed from under the cabinet right before dashing out the front door – daintily on top of the table and nodded toward the pool.

“You know all those people?”

Harry shrugged. “More or less. I also ordered one of those jumpers to put in the front yard, but it's not here yet.”

Niall, who had already filled up a whole plate with food and was starting to assemble a second, was back at Harry's side almost instantaneously. “You're going to get one of those inflatable jumpers?” Harry nodded enthusiastically. “I also got some of those Segway things in the garage as a gift from the label, was thinking about having a race down the street.” Niall turned to Louis, gesturing at Harry with his thumb, and said, “Marry him, Lou.”

Harry barked out a laugh and covered his mouth with his hand, sending Louis into his own set of giggles. It was so comfortable and natural and easy and ugh, Louis' mind had never been such a sappy, annoying place before.

 

Louis made a plate – a hamburger, some potato salad that wasn't dripping in mayonnaise, and a shit ton of Lay's potato chips – and settled down with Harry on the side of the pool, just talking about nothing while hipsters mingled and chit chatted. It was very nice when Louis ignored the fact that he was surrounded by soft grunge, and Louis was very pleased with the way this weekend was turning out. At some point, Louis' had completely cleaned his plate and took off his Toms and was lazily dipping his feet in the pool when a really broad-shouldered Liam Payne dropped down next to him.

Liam Payne was ridiculously good-looking, just like every other person within six degrees of separation of Louis – Louis refused to associate with anyone who wasn't above-average in the looks department, it was a poor reflection upon himself – like Liam just had gorgeous brown eyes, an open face that you rarely saw on guys in LA, tremendous abs, really sturdy shoulders, and arms that Louis would rather see bracketed over him. Like, Liam Payne was the type of guy who probably fucked you until you cried, teasing you all through it, and then asked, “Oh, are you all right?” when it was over. Liam Payne probably only watched female friendly pornography, actually, because he was so sensitive and giving in bed, like, caring and all that. Louis vaguely wanted to fuck the shit out of him, but figured that hitting on his soulmate's bandmate was probably in bad form.

Liam Payne was also staring at Louis with a vaguely curious expression. He thrust his hand forward awkwardly. “I don't think I've met you before? I'm Liam Payne.”

“I know who you are, I've watched every clip of you and Harry here on YouTube,” Louis said, smiling at Liam and taking his hand. “My name is Louis Tomlinson.”

“Oh! Louis,” Liam repeated, his face lighting up. “Harry hasn't shut up about you.”

Louis fucking _preened_. “Really?”

Harry leaned across Louis, shoving lightly at Liam's shoulders. “Hey,” he said, dragging the word out with his deep, raspy voice. “Don't scare him off, Li.”

“That'd be impossible,” Louis said. “You'd have to do a lot more to get rid of me, dear Harold.”

“That's nice,” Niall yelled from where he was apparently standing behind Louis, Harry, and Liam, half of a hamburger in hand. “Can we ride Segways now?”

 

Harry and Niall were racing a pair of Segways down the middle of the street by the time the inflatable guys came around and started setting up the giant Spongebob Squarepants house. Louis watched both activities with vague interest, sitting on the curb with Liam, talking about everything and nothing in particular while eating chocolate ice cream he had found in Harry's freezer and mixed with Bailey's.

“Harry really does like you, you know,” Liam said, frowning when Harry attempted to make a sharp turn on the Segway and instead wound up falling on his ass. Niall stopped his own Segway, pointed at Harry, and laughed heartily. “He won't shut up about you when we're in the studio.”

Louis fluttered his eyelashes. “Does he now?”

Liam chuckled, his eyes crinkling up. He was really quite hot, no wonder he and Harry were so popular, stars on the rise, the best thing to come out of the US X Factor since ever, goddamn. “Yeah, he's always going on about how happy he is that Zayn showed him your video, or whatever.”

Louis frowned, confused as all hell, and he opened his mouth to ask Liam what the fuck he was talking about when Niall and Harry crashed into each other, meaning that Segway time was over.

 

The inflatable guys looked like they hated their life, but they got the Spongebob house up rather quickly, so that was nice. Harry paid them and they promised to come and collect the inflatable jumper in a few hours. Harry and Niall darted in immediately because they were both five, apparently, and Liam reluctantly entered a few minutes afterward, wrestling both Harry and Niall with ease as if that was his true life calling, but Louis held back because the idea of jumping when he had only just finished his delicious alcohol-ice cream mixture sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. As he was digesting, some of Harry's dirty hipster friends made their way out of the pool where they were most certainly getting pruny and awful, and into the poor Spongebob house, getting their dirty hipster feet all over the jumper, and sticking to Harry's side like the dirty hipster leeches they were, and Louis decided to get another drink because he just couldn't deal with people like this. Louis couldn't help himself – he was a bit of a frat boy at heart (never mind the tattoos and his desperate attempts at being punk rock), just like Niall, actually, which was probably why they got on so well – and like, hipsters were the antithesis of the carefree frat boy stereotype. Louis just wanted to sit around in his boxers, smoke out of his bong, maybe watch some sports and flirt with people who were woefully out of his league, not stand around and talk about – he wasn't even sure what this one guy, Nick, was saying. Something about books maybe? Louis wasn't sure, he hadn't opened a book that didn't have dicks in it in like five years, and he wasn't even entirely sure when he had decided to wander back into the house, only sure that he needed more chocolate. Nick was good-looking, Louis supposed, if he looked at Nick cross-eyed and forgot that people like Harry and Zayn and Liam and Niall existed, but whatever. Nick tried to rope Louis into a conversation but Louis resolutely stared at a bottle of Bailey's until the guy got the hint. Louis commended himself on his tremendous social skills while he mixed himself another bowl of ice cream and whiskey, taking it back out front where he plopped down in the middle of the street. He was wondering why he didn't do this more often, the whole sitting in the middle of the street with sweets and alcohol thing, when some idiot promptly ran into his back.

“Motherfucking – oh hi, Zayn.”

Zayn grinned sheepishly, pulling at his skateboard from where it had become trapped underneath his bony ass. “I was going to turn at the last minute, but then I didn't.”

Louis scowled, shoving a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. “I gathered. Where have you been?”

“I was inside the house,” Zayn answered, shrugging and sitting on his skateboard. “Why are you sitting in the middle of the street?”

“Good place as any.”

Zayn smiled, his tongue pushing against the back of his teeth and Louis hated him, like a lot. Louis hated Zayn and his fucking amazing eyes and how good he smelled and his fucking dumbass smile. “Can I have some ice cream?”

Louis raised an eyebrow at Zayn. “No.”

“Please?”

Louis pouted, sighed, took a large spoonful of ice cream and yelled, “Bukkake!” before splattering ice cream over Zayn's face. Zayn groaned, wiping at the chocolate on his cheek with the back of his hand, and mumbled, “I should've expected that.”

Louis shrugged, very pleased with himself. “Hey,” he started suddenly, remembering his earlier conversation with Liam. “So, like. You know Harry.”

Zayn looked distinctly unimpressed. “As do you. We're actually sitting in the middle of the street outside of his house right now.”

“No. Like – you knew him before me. Like, Liam was saying – before he followed me on Instagram.”

Zayn shrugged, still rubbing chocolate off his face. “I mean, like – we were Facebook friends. But I'm Facebook friends with everyone. We never – I wasn't friends with him _like that_.”

If Louis thought he was confused before, he was absolutely perplexed now. He began poking at his ice cream listlessly. “Liam made it seem like you guys all hung out or something, I don't know.”

Zayn got a bit fidgety. “Eh, I mean, like. Liam and I – it's not like we dated. But like – ”

“You guys fucked then?” Louis interrupted, resolutely churning his ice cream and Bailey's with his spoon. “You and Liam?”

Zayn shrugged again. He did that a lot, that and staring off into the distance, and getting fidgety when he was uncomfortable. For someone who pretended to be fucking mysterious, Zayn was really easy to read. “I mean. It was only like, once.”

Louis was starting to get the impression that it was probably more than once, but it wasn't his business. He might be infatuated with Zayn, but Zayn _didn't owe him anything_. Maybe if Louis kept telling himself this, he'd actually believe it.

“You said you were in the house earlier?” Louis continued.

“Yeah, I've been staying with Harry the past few days,” Zayn replied, and while his tone was careful and measured, his hands were fidgeting, fingers running over the gravel, then over the wood of his skateboard, leg bouncing a bit. “Trying to give Danny some space while his girl's in town. I was asleep in the guest bedroom just now.”

Louis hummed and stood up, the bowl of ice cream in his hands suddenly extremely unappealing. “We should best get out of the middle of the street, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Zayn agreed distantly, and they made their way back to the front lawn with its giant inflatable jumper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the fuck even is this story?


	5. Chapter Five: Ayy Lmao

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I'm actually an AVN-nominated adult entertainment star. I'm surprised you haven't already seen my work while you were searching for big asses on Pornhub."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blah blah thanks Frida blah blah this chapter is late blah blah thanks for reading anyway.

Louis was sick. He was also potentially delirious, he wasn't entirely sure. He did know that he was watching Independence Day cuddled up on the couch next to Niall, who was coughing up more mucus than what seemed possible and decent, Louis' laptop sitting on their coffee table while they shared a blanket. The movie was right at the point where Jimmy died and Will Smith was aggressively evading the last alien, parachuting out of his plane while the alien's aircraft crashed into the desert. Will Smith was yelling a lot and finally walked over to the spaceship thing, cracking open the hatch and leering at the ugly alien inside.

“Ayy lmao,” Niall said, really quite seriously, and Louis cackled, his laughs growing louder and also more labored, Louis eventually falling off the couch and coughing a lot while Will Smith punched the alien in the face and welcomed it to Earth.

“You should write a screenplay,” Louis said from his new resting place on the floor, the blanket caught underneath him. “It should be about aliens, and it should be called _Ayy Lmao_ , and you can become famous, and then we'll live in a big house next to Harry's because I'm going to be that hanger-on friend, and then you'll win an Oscar, and then I won't have to resort to a life of pornography anymore.”

“Anymore?” Niall repeated, grabbing a wad of tissue and blowing his nose. “There something you want to tell me, Lou?”

“I'm actually an AVN-nominated adult entertainment star. I'm surprised you haven't already seen my work while you were searching for big asses on Pornhub,” Louis retorted while Niall cackled. “Do you think we can get Safeway to deliver us some soup?”

“If only In-N-Out delivered,” Niall lamented with a sigh. Louis hummed in agreement before pulling his phone out of his pocket, making a face when Kleenex fell out as well. Louis thumbed through his notifications, ignoring a string of texts from Zayn because Louis was avoiding him, before clicking through to Twitter and heading straight to one of his favorite Harry Styles update accounts. It was based in Sweden and Louis wasn't sure how it was possible those girls always got the scoop first. Louis was jealous. He wished he knew where Harry was 24/7, it would certainly make his life easier.

Louis clicked through pictures of Harry from the night before, leaving the studio with a very handsome, muscle-y Liam in tow. Louis smiled. Louis liked Liam, quite a lot, actually. Louis had thought about it while he was taking a shower the day before, and came to the conclusion that if he wasn't so emotionally masochistic, Liam would clearly be the person Louis would fall madly in love with. Hell, he was everything you should want out of life – nice, sweet, great arms, probably a big dick, too. Although those same attributes could also be used to describe Harry. Harry was adorable, had been checking in with Louis multiple times a day, offered to come over and bring him some soup, so maybe Louis didn't need to need the Safeway grocery delivery service. Those attributes decidedly didn't describe Zayn. Zayn was an asshole, even if he did have a rather nice dick, and he was hiding something, and Louis had decided sometime in the last few days that he didn't want to know what, ignorance being bliss and all that, so Louis was avoiding him.

Which meant, of course, that Louis noticed Zayn in the background of one of the paparazzi pictures, off to Harry's side, looking decidedly grumpy but still channeling his inner Gucci model, a beanie shoved over his hair.

“Son of a bitch!” Louis said, throwing his phone onto the floor. It was carpet in the living room too, he was sure his screen was fine.

“What's wrong?” Niall said, blowing his nose and not even tearing his eyes away from Independence Day. Rude.

“Zayn! He's an asshole!”

“Huh,” Niall answered.

“He went to the studio with Harry!”

Niall shrugged. “They're friends, Louis. They can hang out without you.”

Louis fidgeted a bit. He couldn't explain why but it just – he felt uncomfortable. _He didn't like it_. He wasn't sure what “it” was, but it was decidedly not liked. Unwelcome. And it wasn't just jealousy – Louis was used to feeling jealous over Zayn, possessive even, spent a lot of time thinking about all of the other people who got to have him for one night when all Louis got was his drunken texts and “accidentally” sent partial nudes. And Louis got annoyed when people on his timeline brought Harry up, thinking, “Mine” in this weird growling voice as he tried to ignore whatever thirsty tweet he read.

This anxious feeling was _nothing_ like that.

Louis was scared. He felt as though something huge was looming on the horizon. And like – he had been trying to avoid confronting it head on. Louis knew from Harry's casual texts that Zayn was still staying at his house – and funny how nobody had thought to bring that up until Louis fucking asked? Louis knew that Zayn was lying about _something_ , that day at Harry's party. _Something_ was up. Louis was just trying to protect himself. But Zayn wouldn't even let him fucking do that – popping up in paparazzi pictures when he knew, yes he _knew_ , that Louis checked that shit insistently. He had probably texted Louis about them, too. “Me and your soulmate aha xx” or some other nonsense, a goad to get Louis to respond again. Louis couldn't deal. Zayn was his best friend (besides Niall, of course) – why couldn't he fucking act like it anymore?

Louis actually felt as though the Internet was throwing all of his insecurities back in his face. He needed a drink, or to take off his clothes and dance to Selena Gomez. He wasn't sure which he would end up doing. Maybe a mixture of both.

“Louis?” Niall was saying. “Louis, are you all right?”

“I'm just – I'm over-analyzing,” Louis heard himself explain distantly. Lying was just easier and Louis had always been a good actor. If he wasn't already feeling sick, he would be, now.

“It's normal to feel jealous,” Niall replied easily. Louis felt himself nod and lost himself in the plot of Independence Day. He'd definitely take a few shots and record himself dancing later. Being wired into the Internet, losing himself in the likes and follows, was the only way he could deal with things these days.

 

A few days later, Louis was feeling moderately better, no longer a walking ball of mucus, and was on the phone with Harry while sitting in the In-N-Out drive-thru, even though it was illegal to be on a cellular phone without a hands-free device while operating a vehicle in the state of California.

“And can you get a double-double for both Zayn and I?” Harry asked. “I'll give you the money once you're here.”

“Why is Zayn still staying with you?” Louis groaned. “He told me he was just hanging around until Danny's girlfriend went back home.”

“Because I asked him to,” Harry replied simply. “He's good company.”

“You do know he's an unemployed loser.”

Harry's laugh was like sunshine and butterflies. Louis' eyes might have gone a bit crossed in pleasure listening to it. “You're unemployed, too.”

“Details,” Louis answered dismissively. He inched forward a bit in line. Waiting at In-N-Out was always such a chore, hopefully they would send someone outside to take the orders in a bit. “But um. Like. Will we have to entertain him when I get there?” Louis hoped that Harry could imagine his waggling eyebrows just from the tone of his voice.

Harry and Louis were definitely still sexting each other. It was impossible for Louis to think about Harry without his mind supplying images from that video Harry had sent him. Like – God. Was it even within the realm of reason to look at Harry and _not_ think about all the sex – like fucking his face, hitting him from behind, maybe shoving him around the room a bit before swallowing around his dick, and those were just the first handful of things that Louis had dreamt up. Like, Louis _wanted_ Harry, wanted him badly, and not just as a potential fuck buddy. Louis meant it when he said that he thought of Harry as soul mate material. Harry was hot and funny and smart and sexy and emotionally available and he could sing and like did he drop out of heaven or something because what the fuck, it wasn't possible for someone like that to exist and be interested in someone as fucking stupid as Louis. But, hey, Louis wasn't contagious anymore, wasn't going to get Harry sick, like Louis was 80% sure that Harry couldn't get sick from comeplay. And Louis hadn't fucked anyone in ages, not since he had drunkenly called his ex-girlfriend and she gave him a bit of pity sex. So yeah. Louis was down. DTF. Gagging for it. Easy for a bit of Harry Styles.

“We could always kick Zayn out the house so we can get right to christening every corner,” Harry replied easily enough. “Unless you are down for a threesome?”

Louis wasn't sure if Harry was kidding or not. He also wasn't sure when the idea of a threesome with Harry and Zayn had become unappealing. “I'm not talking to Zayn, so that'd probably be unwise.”

“What happened?” Harry asked, his tone immediately switching from flirty to concerned.

“Nothing for you to worry your pretty head about, Curly,” Louis answered. “I've got to hang up now, I just noticed a cop eating a hamburger in the parking lot.”

Louis hung up and threw his phone onto the passenger seat while the police officer chewed his lunch and watched Louis warily. Louis just waved.

 

Louis got over to Harry's house about twenty minutes later, doing his best to ignore Zayn even as Zayn opened the front door and gestured for Louis to make himself at home. Louis dropped a double-double down in front of Zayn in response. Zayn pouted but didn't push Louis, instead muttering his thanks, grabbing his meal and plopping himself down in front of the television.

“Where's Harry?” Louis asked, meandering into the kitchen.

“Upstairs. I think he's still taking a shower.”

“Cool, thanks,” Louis answered, clenching the bags in a fist and making his way up the stairs. He walked down the hallway to Harry's room and pushed the door open. Louis could hear the sound of running water to his right, and Louis walked over to the bathroom door, which had actually been left wide open, not that Louis was going to look in and watch Harry as he stood underneath the spray, head bowed as he let rivulets of water make their way down his broad back, soapy hands cleaning off his calves, then coasting upwards, inching closer and closer to what Louis really wanted to see. Louis coughed, throwing his hand over his eyes as he walked into the bathroom and called, “Hey, Harry, I've got your food!”

“You don't need to cover your eyes, it isn't anything you haven't seen before,” Harry answered in that slow, easy voice of his.

“I'm trying not to be a creeper!” Louis answered, his hand still firmly over his eyes. “Is it working?”

“I suppose,” Harry replied. “But I wouldn't mind if you were.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Dirty boys need cleaning off.”

Louis snorted. “Corny.”

“You like it.”

Louis shrugged, uncovering his eyes. “That I do.”

Harry smirked, turning his upper body toward Louis and flipping wet hair out of his eyes. “Does In-N-Out taste good cold?”

“It tastes good all the time,” Louis replied.

“Cool,” Harry mumbled. “Would it be awkward for our first time together to be in the shower?”

“Already assuming that we'll be fucking more than once?”

Harry laughed and turned completely so he was facing Louis, putting his hands up against the glass of his shower. Harry had a smattering of tattoos on his bicep and chest, including a butterfly looking thing that Louis vaguely wanted to skeet on, and he was well built, strong looking shoulders, defined abs that tapered off to a sharp V-cut and a thatch of brown hair that did nothing but accentuate an absolutely mouthwatering dick, thick, long and uncut.

“Can you blame me?” Harry retorted, grinning cheekily.

“Bastard,” Louis supplied gleefully, placing the bags of food on the counter and throwing off his hoodie.

“Slower,” Harry admonished, backing up from the shower glass, moving further underneath the spray, stopping only once he reached the wall and then guiding long, skittering fingers down the planes of his stomach, wrapping around himself and pumping into his fist. “Like in your videos.”

Louis cursed lowly underneath his breath and reached for the hem of his shirt, lifting it teasingly before breaking into the running man.

“Oh my God, please stop,” Harry whined. “I'm gonna go soft here.”

Louis laughed and grabbed the bottom of his shirt and threw it off in one fluid motion before spinning and falling to the ground, bracing himself on his elbows as he slowly brought his body down to the linoleum, humping the floor, moving teasingly slow, the only sounds in the room being the squeak of Louis moving across the ground, Harry's loud breathing, and the water from the shower as Louis felt himself swell in his jeans.

“Shit, okay, enough teasing, come here,” Harry bit out and Louis grinned again, pushing himself up from the ground and grabbing himself through his jeans before slowly popping the buttons open, staring at Harry the whole time. Harry was watching Louis almost desperately, hand stilled at the base of his cock, just holding it as though just watching Louis fucking about was _too much_ , and shit, Louis didn't want this moment to end, so when he grabbed his pants he only inched them down slowly, uncovering centimeters more of his body.

“ _Louis_.”

“Did you know I used to be a stripper?” Louis asked once his pants were sitting right over his crotch, right at the V where his faint happy trail blossomed into pubic hair.

“Really?” Harry asked, his eyes snapping up to Louis' face momentarily.

“Yup!” Louis answered and he shoved his pants and boxers off with a flourish before climbing into the shower and pushing Harry up against the wall, slotting his thigh between Harry's and grinding their dicks together before slinking to the ground, lapping at Harry's precome and thinking something like, “Yum!” before sucking the tip into his mouth.

“Ohfuckingshit,” Harry groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Mhmpfh,” Louis responded from around a mouthful of Harry's dick.

Harry's hand curled around the back of Louis' neck, rubbing encouragingly around the skin there as Louis took him further in, using one hand to cover the difference because as big of a cockslut as Louis could be, Harry was fucking big, okay. Louis sucked him contentedly for a few minutes before letting Harry fall out of his mouth, grabbing Harry's dick and pushing it upwards, still working him, base to tip while the shower spray beat over them, before lapping at Harry's sack, sucking Harry's balls into his mouth while Harry went boneless and shaky underneath him, cursing out, “LouisyougivethebestfuckingheadohshitIwanna” before coming all over Louis' hand.

“Right,” Louis said, watching Harry fall to his ass in the shower before using the hand covered in Harry's come to jack himself off, aiming his spunk so he got some of it on Harry's dumbass butterfly moth thing and nonsensically thinking, “Ayy lmao” in his moment of triumph.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I get really proud of myself as a writer and then I remember this story and groan internally.


	6. Chapter Six: Crossfaded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're evil and I hate you, you fucking bastard,” Louis said once he finally recovered.
> 
> “Eh, it turns you on.”
> 
> Louis shrugged because it was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter in like three hours, you're welcome.
> 
> Frida is the best beta. Shout out to Crystal for requesting mouth/throat fucking while Zayn smokes a blunt. 
> 
> Also this chapter includes a lot of discussion about vomiting during oral sex for some reason, not that this weird sex act actually occurs during the story. I'm not sure why? I'm not even drunk. I also don't know what this particular thing is even called, but if someone has an idea, just let me know so I can edit the tags!

Louis ended up spending the night over at Harry's, mostly because as soon as Louis came he realized he was exhausted, having only just enough energy to help Harry clean up, scarf down his hamburger, and pass out in Harry's bed. He woke up suddenly at two in the morning, Harry snoring softly next to him, their bodies entwined in the best possible way. Louis extricated himself as best as he could, not letting himself feel a small pang of – longing? he wasn't sure what the right word was for this – as he finally crawled out of the bed, Harry curling around himself at the loss.

Louis made his way downstairs, pausing on the staircase when he saw that Zayn was sitting in front of the television with a bong at his feet. Zayn was watching some old rerun of the nineties Spiderman cartoon and had his cell phone in one hand, taking a shit ton of selfies, the other hand buried in a bag of spicy hot Cheetos while a bearded dragon crawled around on his chest.

All in all, it wasn't the weirdest thing Zayn could be doing at about two in the morning. Louis was surprised he didn't have his dick out while scrolling through his DM's.

“When did you get a bearded dragon?” Louis asked before remembering that he was avoiding Zayn.

“Today,” Zayn answered, snapping another picture and making a face at the image before bringing his phone up to take another. “While you and Harry were having the loudest sex I've ever heard. I'm thinking about naming him Arnie.”

Louis hummed and walked up to Zayn, grabbing the bong off the ground and placing it on Harry's coffee table before falling on the couch next to Zayn. “What were you doing, standing at the bathroom door or something? Are you jealous?”

“Extremely,” Zayn replied tonelessly, taking another picture before grabbing the bearded dragon and delicately laying him on the table next to the bong. “All it took was a good dicking for you to come talk to me again, then?”

Louis sneered, shoving at Zayn's shoulders. “Stop being an asshole.”

“Could say the same to you,” Zayn mumbled. “You avoid me all week, I don't even know what I did wrong. But you text Harry all fucking day, tweet about him, and you haven't even left any asks in my Tumblr.”

“I thought we were going to have a serious conversation about feelings, but then you brought up Tumblr.”

This time it was Zayn's turn to sneer. “Look, I'm – I just wanna know what I did wrong, so I can fix it.”

Louis sighed, slouching into Harry's couch. “Can't we just – avoid all of this and skip to fucking or something?”

Zayn blinked. “Are you mad that I'm not having sex with you? Are we still on that? Because we can have sex right now if that's what the problem is.”

“You know that's not why I'm mad at you!” Louis exclaimed. “I've half given up on us ever properly hooking up, all right? I'm mad at you because you're keeping shit from me!”

“I'm not keeping anything from you.”

“Bullshit you are,” Louis mumbled, standing up and walking through to Harry's kitchen, throwing open the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer. Louis banged open a few cabinets before finally finding Harry's shot glasses. Louis pulled out two and poured a generous amount in both, slamming both shots back, one after the other, before refilling the shot glasses and tossing those back as well.

“Are you drinking back there?” Zayn called from the living room.

“Fuck you,” Louis answered in a sing-song voice, pouring one more shot while Zayn walked into the kitchen. Zayn grabbed the bottle of Goose out of Louis' hand and stole the other shot glass.

“How many shots have you had already?” Zayn asked.

“Five.”

“Aw, I'm proud,” Zayn cooed, holding his shot glass up to Louis. “Can I propose a toast?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm gonna do it anyway,” Zayn answered. “Here's to getting those pants off within the hour.” Louis choked on his own spit and fell victim to a Zayn-induced coughing fit as Zayn laughed at him, throwing his shot back and making grabby hands at Louis for the other shot glass.

“You're evil and I hate you, you fucking bastard,” Louis said once he finally recovered.

“Eh, it turns you on.”

Louis shrugged because it was true.

 

Three shots, two miserable attempts on Louis' part trying to take a hit from the bong, and one shared blunt later and Louis had Zayn's dick in his mouth. This was apparently a theme.

“Shiiiiiiit,” Zayn mumbled, exhaling a cloud of smoke as he thrust into Louis' mouth. He had rolled another blunt as Louis killed the first one, and he had it in his right hand now, his left tugging the long hairs at the nape of Louis' neck. It shouldn't have been as hot as it was.

Louis pulled off slightly, Zayn thick and heavy on his tongue, and moaned, palming at himself through his jeans. Louis really loved sucking dick. Like, he understood that a lot of people didn't, but those people were morons. Giving head was awesome, regardless of gender. And it was always different each time, experimenting with what different people liked. For example, Harry came the minute Louis got his mouth around his balls. Zayn was less thrilled by the idea, gently nudging Louis back to his shaft, thrusting experimentally down the back of Louis' throat. Not like Louis was opposed to some deep throating – he had an awful gag reflex, but he curled his hand into a fist and closed his eyes, exhaling sharply through his nose before taking Zayn all the way down, moaning triumphantly when the tip of his nose brushed Zayn's pelvis.

“You're so good at this, babe,” Zayn encouraged, taking a long pull off his blunt as Louis hallowed his cheeks and sucked hard. “We should've been doing this _months_ ago, fuck.”

Louis pulled off completely, a thick string of spit and precome connecting his lips to Zayn's dick. “That's what I've been trying to tell you, you stupid motherfucker.”

Zayn looked distinctly unimpressed. “Get back to sucking my dick.”

Louis scowled. “I'm still mad at you. You better say the magic fucking word.”

Zayn groaned like being a semi-decent human being was some great inconvenience. “ _Please_ get back to sucking my dick, Louis.”

Louis grinned, wrapping his hand around the base of Zayn's dick and lapping at the head teasingly. Zayn made a frustrated noise, grabbing Louis by the back of his neck and pulling Louis into his lap, nipping at his bottom lip before leaning in to kiss him. It was rough, breathless even, Zayn plunging his tongue into Louis' mouth ruthlessly, sucking the taste of himself out of Louis' mouth, and Louis struggled to match Zayn's pace, breathing through his nose loudly and reaching down to grab Zayn's cock again, using his own spit and Zayn's precome to make it an easier glide. Just like everything else that had been going on his life, it seemed like Louis was just along for the ride, letting Zayn use him to get off. Zayn pulled back abruptly, smirking at Louis' dazed expression, before standing, taking his pants completely off and slinking to the ground, gesturing for Louis to sit back against the couch.

“Take your pants off,” Zayn said, putting out his blunt on Harry's coffee table leg like the asshole he was. Louis nodded, pushing his jeans and boxers down to his ankles and jerking his dick a little self-consciously. Louis actually wasn't sure whether his dick was going to cooperate in this great time of need. He was crossfaded as a motherfucker, and while it was super nice getting his mouth around Zayn – fucking finally – he wasn't sure whether he wanted to fall asleep or get his dick sucked.

That's a lie, he definitely wanted to get his dick sucked. Like, Louis was just thinking in all caps at this point, because HE WAS HAVING SO MUCH SEX TODAY! After spending so much time with Pam and her five friends, like fuck there was nothing like having another person touch you. His cock just didn't seem to know whether or not a blowjob was what it needed out of life, right now. Whiskey dick was a motherfucker.

“Maybe it just needs a pep talk,” Louis said. Zayn eyed Louis' dick skeptically. Zayn's bearded dragon also appeared to be watching them from on top of the television, where Spiderman had given way to an old Iron Man cartoon. This was not how Louis thought he would be spending his life.

“Maybe we should just go to bed and we can try this again in the morning,” Zayn suggested. “I'd actually rather bend you over the table, and I'm so fucked up I might puke all over your cock at this point anyway, so.”

“That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world,” Louis confessed. Zayn looked up at him, a horrified expression on his face. “It wouldn't be, oh my God, don't tell me you never thought about it!”

“I honestly haven't, Louis.”

“You'd let someone skeet on your face, but you wouldn't let them puke on your dick?”

Zayn sputtered, which just looked ridiculous because he was naked and his dick was still hard and covered in Louis' spit. “Those aren't even close to being the same thing!”

“Precome has like, pee in it,” Louis reasoned. “Vomit just has like, stomach bile and crackers. Or I guess stomach bile and In-N-Out. Or in your case, stomach bile and a lot of random guys' come. Ideally mine, too.”

“Please stop talking, oh my fucking God.”

Louis shrugged and leaned back against the couch, reaching down and desperately willing for his dick to get hard. “This is so stupid. If I say this never happened before, would you believe me?”

“Figures you would get performance anxiety,” Zayn answered, climbing onto the couch next to Louis. His cock was still hard and it was still really distracting. “All of this anticipation and build-up and then you can't get it up.”

“I'm drunk!” Louis answered. “I'm drunk, it's normal not to be able to get hard when you've had like eight fucking shots of Grey Goose, you unbelievable asshole!”

Zayn shrugged. “You probably would've found a way with Harry.”

Louis pulled his pants back up and looked at Zayn with absolute disbelief. “You really are jealous, aren't you?”

“That's not – ”

“No, you're being a total dick about this,” Louis interrupted. “I put your dick in my mouth after I just had a fantastic time fucking a guy who has done nothing but treat me well and make me feel special – hook up with _you_ in his fucking house, where you've been staying like the unemployed freeloader you are! So, what's your issue?”

Zayn swallowed, walking over to the television and grabbing his bearded dragon, letting it crawl up his arm with a completely blank expression on his face. “I'm not trying to be a dick here. I just – you spent so much time talking about how much you want me and now it's like you don't even give a fuck about me.”

“I literally was making out with you everyday,” Louis pointed out. “I've thrown myself at you for ages. I've also only known you in real life for like a month. Am I just supposed to fawn over you forever? Is that the basis of our friendship?”

Zayn shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You're selfish.”

Zayn shrugged again. “Definitely.”

“Are you fucking Harry?”

Zayn turned to Louis, eyebrows raised. “What makes you think that I'm hooking up with him?”

“Not hooking up,” Louis clarified. “That's not what I asked. I asked if you're fucking him.”

Zayn opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything.

“I fucking hate you,” Louis mumbled, checking his pockets to see whether his phone and keys were in them (they were), and leaving without another word. He couldn't drive because he was drunk, so he started to walk but then remembered he lived far away, so he called Niall, who dutifully came and picked Louis up at four in the morning a few blocks away from Harry's house. Neither In-N-Out nor McDonald's were open, so they had to settle for the $5 boxes from Jack-in-the-Box, Louis crying all over his tacos once they finally got home.

Louis never wanted to talk to Zayn again. Zayn was something like his best friend but he was ruining everything. Best friends didn't fuck their best friends' potential soulmates. Louis was pretty sure that was one of the Ten Commandments. As for Harry – Louis didn't really know Harry, and they had never talked about what this was, and they'd only hooked up once, so Louis couldn't blame Harry for probably sleeping with Zayn, especially not when Louis was about to let Zayn suck him off on Harry's couch and probably would've let Zayn do a lot more, had his dick actually wanted to cooperate.

Maybe his cock was just looking out for him. All of this would've hurt a lot more if Zayn had actually gotten to bending Louis over a table. Not just physically, although, well, it's not like Louis hated bottoming, he could do it, he'd just rather not, most of the time. Louis meant like emotionally. Blah.

Feelings were stupid. Louis didn't think humping furniture would even make him feel better at this point, even though acting like an idiot tended to make him feel good 98% of the time. He ate his tear-soggy tacos, took another few shots of some Captain Morgan that he found underneath the sink, and passed out on the living room floor, hoping that when he woke up everything would magically be better.

 

It wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't hate this chapter wtf.


	7. Chapter Seven: Gone, Gone, Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis was glad that he was already resigned to never getting an AA from Los Angeles City College, because he was never leaving this apartment again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . this chapter is late. My bad. 
> 
> Thanks to Frida for everything, as usual. And thanks to all of you for reading and asking me when I'm updating and leaving comments and kudos. It really is very nice of you, and I appreciate it so much.

Louis woke up to the sound of someone banging on his door. Louis groaned, rolling over and – oh wow, he was on the floor, half underneath the coffee table actually. He coughed, rubbing at the side of his face. The inside of his mouth tasted like he had licked a toilet bowl, which, considering how many shit decisions he had made recently, wouldn't even be the weirdest thing. Honestly what the fuck. He was never going to drink again.

“Louis!” a familiar voice called. “Louis, open the door!”

And just like that, it all came flooding back. Hooking up with Harry, sucking Zayn's dick, realizing that Zayn was a dirty fucking liar and soul mate thief, drunkenly walking four blocks away from Harry's house before calling Niall and sitting on the curb to tweet some of the most pitiful things in his life, crying over his tacos. Louis was glad that he was already resigned to never getting an AA from Los Angeles City College, because he was never leaving this apartment again. Like hell he was going to open the door for Zayn.

“Go the fuck away,” Louis croaked, throwing his arm over his eyes. “Louis is dead.”

“Stop being melodramatic!” Zayn responded.

“Stop banging on my fucking door!” Louis answered.

“Stop yelling!” Niall yelled from somewhere inside their apartment.

“Don't yell at me to stop yelling!” Louis retorted.

“Is that Niall?” Zayn called.

“It's definitely not Louis, because Louis died!” Louis said.

There was a large commotion from Niall's bedroom before he emerged, fluffy blonde hair looking like a golden birds' nest as he tripped over a box of pizza lying about in the hallway. Niall shot Louis a disgusted look as he tiptoed through the maze of their filthy living room and opened the door, gesturing for Zayn to make himself at home.

“I hate you, Niall,” Louis said brightly as Niall turned to walk back toward his bedroom.

Niall laughed, retorting, “You could never,” before shutting his bedroom door behind him, leaving Zayn and Louis in an uncomfortable, protracted silence.

“I need a drink,” Louis announced, rolling out from under the table and standing up. Louis quickly regretted the decision as a wave of nausea hit him. He groaned and slumped back to the floor, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Zayn asked, his voice small.

“Clearly, no.”

Zayn sighed. “I'm sorry. I just – I bought you your car.”

Louis grunted. “Thanks. Wait – how did you do that? I took my keys with me.”

Louis sat up to examine Zayn, who was glancing around the room a bit shiftily. “I've got a skeleton key.”

Louis was confused. “But – you don't even drive?”

“Exactly.”

Louis flopped back against the carpet. “It's too early for this. Thanks for bringing the car. You can go now.”

Zayn came and sat next to Louis on the floor, giving Louis a good opportunity to really look at him. Zayn's hair was flat, thick strands falling over his forehead without a beanie or hat to contain them. His eyes were a bit red, almost like he had been crying, but Louis knew that he'd probably just been drinking or smoking all night. He was also wearing a dingy band T-shirt that Louis was about 98% sure was Harry's. He looked good despite it all, and Louis hated it.

“We can't just – you've got to let me explain, Lou.”

“There's nothing to explain,” Louis replied politely. “You are having sex with Harry, who I have also had sex with, and who I would actually rather like to date.”

“I'm not having sex with Harry – ”

“Stop lying!” Louis exclaimed. “I know you're lying! I might spend all of my free time on the fucking internet but I'm not an idiot, okay?”

Zayn sneered at Louis, his face closing off completely. “Stop acting so irrational!”

“Irrational?” Louis repeated shrilly. “I'm being irrational? You're supposed to be my friend, Zayn.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means you shouldn't be fucking the guy I'm trying to seriously get with. What about this is so difficult to process?”

“I'm not fucking him – ”

“Bullshit, I know you are!” Louis took a breath, wishing he could sink through the floor and become one with the carpet or something. “Zayn, I fucking love you, all right? You're – I feel like I've known you for all my life sometimes because we get each other. And part of that means I know when you're holding something from me. I can tell. And honestly, that's what's pissing me off. I really don't know Harry, and like – I want to, but it's totally possible that he doesn't see me in this way. But you? I know you. And I mean – I know I joke about it a lot, but that's only because I want you so bad and don't know how else to deal with all of my fucking feelings.” Louis trailed off, the nausea returning, but now because of what he divulged and not because of all the alcohol in his system. Although actually – “I think the only reason I said all of that is because I'm still drunk.”

Zayn turned away from Louis, running a hand through his hair. “Look, you're my best friend, Louis, and I honestly do love you, too, but – Harry's my friend too, we met when he was still on X Factor through Liam, and I've been hooking up with him for a while. I wanted you guys to be friends, too, and like. I wasn't expecting for things to get so messy.”

“So talk to me then,” Louis yelled. “Talk to me and explain everything. Or shit – say all of that from fucking jump. Don't lie and let me hear things about you from people I don't even fucking know!”

“I'm sorry!”

“No, you're not,” Louis growled. “You're not sorry for doing it, you're sorry you got caught. But maybe you wouldn't keep getting caught if you weren't so fucking sloppy.”

“Louis – ”

“Whatever, I'm done talking to you. Get out.”

“Louis – ”

“No, I'm serious,” Louis answered. “I'll call you when I don't want to punch you so badly.”

Zayn's voice was small when he asked, “Promise?”

Louis sighed, nodding. Zayn reached over and pressed a small kiss to Louis' cheek before letting himself out. Louis stood up and tottered to the bathroom to vomit. He somehow made it back to his bedroom, turning on Phillip Phillip's album for a bit of soothing music, and drifted off to “Gone, Gone, Gone,” his mind blissfully blank for the first time in what felt like weeks.

 

Louis slept the rest of the day away, and woke up the next afternoon feeling emotionally drained and very hungry. Louis decided to not go to In-N-Out, Starbucks, or McDonald's to eat his feelings for once and instead checked out this hipster restaurant with Niall, ordering carrot soup because it was the only thing on the menu that seemed familiar and edible. This was a mistake.

“This carrot soup tastes like come,” Louis whined. Niall shrugged.

“You would know, man.”

“Carrot-y come. I have made a grave, perhaps fatal, error,” Louis said, shoving another spoonful into his mouth and thinking, “Just swallow,” which only caused him to choke and spit it back into the bowl.

“Is this your normal reaction to semen then?” Niall asked, eating whatever the fuck sandwich he had ordered and which probably did not have the same consistency as bodily fluids.

“Shut up, I am Team Come On My Face anyway,” Louis retorted. “Oh my God, this soup is vile.”

“I'm sure it's not that bad.”

“I am not above dumping this over your head, taking a picture, and posting it to Instagram with the caption 'Orange bukkake,' do not test me, Niall.”

Niall shrugged and Louis sighed as his phone began to vibrate against his leg. Louis fished it out of his pocket with a frown, relaxing when he saw it was Stan, one of his friends from back home. Louis made an apologetic face in Niall's general direction and Niall just shrugged, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and reaching over to grab the rest of Louis' soup.

“Well, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Louis asked, holding his iPhone to his ear and ignoring the horrified look of the hipster waiter who was tending to their table. Whatever. Louis would talk loudly at pretentious restaurants all he wanted, it was his First Amendment right.

“Lewis!” Stan cried. “You're all famous now!”

Louis shook his head before he remembered that Stan couldn't see him. “Nah, I'm just an idiot who posts videos on the internet.”

“No, like, really, I'm looking at a picture of you sitting on a curb outside of Harry Styles' house,” Stan clarified. “Which, by the way – how come you didn't tell me you knew Harry Styles and Zayn Malik?”

Louis watched in horror as Niall put down the spoon and drank the carrot soup out of Louis' bowl, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed it all down. Louis retched a little in sympathy. “Um, I didn't know that being friends with either of them was a big deal?”

“''Course it is! Harry is like the artist to watch, I'm pretty sure I actually saw him and that Liam guy on MTV's Artist to Watch thing,” Stan continued. “And then Zayn is just like – wow. Zayn Malik.”

Louis snorted. “Zayn isn't famous, though.”

This time it was Stan's turn to scoff. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“Have you never Googled his name?”

Louis took a moment to think about it and realized that no, he hadn't. It was about six months ago now, when they “met.” Louis had just started playing around on Vine, and he noticed that he had a bunch of new followers on Tumblr, so he scrolled through the list and saw Zayn's blog. Zayn's icon was a picture of himself, and Zayn was hot, so Louis followed him back and then sent Zayn a message saying that he liked Zayn's face. That had honestly been the beginning of their friendship. Why would Louis ever Google Zayn's name? “I thought Zayn was just some Tumblr famous person?” Louis said, his voice lilting up to make it sound like a question.

“Dude, he was totally on a bunch of Disney shows back in the day, although now I guess he just kind of makes music to put on the Internet for free and posts Instagram selfies. Although I think I read somewhere that he's involved with Harry's album process.”

The entire universe suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense. “Huh,” Louis said.

Stan laughed. “I can't believe how oblivious you are sometimes, Louis.”

Louis shrugged, forgetting that Stan couldn't see him. “Lingering effect of being a small-town boy, I guess.”

“Bakersfield isn't a small town, Lou.”

Louis twitched. Remembering that he used to live in Bakersfield was always kind of upsetting. It was just – Bakersfield was shit, there was no way around it. It was an awful place, and Louis left the moment he could, and had since vowed to lie about where he was from whenever anyone asked (as far as his followers knew, Louis had grown up in Seattle). After graduation, Louis spent some time in Vegas where he danced to support himself for a bit before moving to the United Kingdom for a few months, couch surfing in London, fucking strangers, and occasionally stripping illegally since he didn't have a work visa. Louis moved home to attempt a semester at Bakersfield College, which was when he started making YouTube videos, mostly out of boredom. Eventually, the videos were providing him with an income, enough of one to move out, and everyone knew the action was in Los Angeles, so that's where he decided to relocate. Louis had a cheap apartment in Lincoln Heights when he met Niall at East Los Angeles College, and that had kind of been that.

“You know, I've thought about it a bit,” Louis started, drumming his fingers on the table. “And like – I would rather be unemployed and miserable in Los Angeles than rich and happy in Bakersfield.”

Stan laughed, long and heartily. “I get you, man. But like – you aren't unemployed and miserable right now, are you?”

Louis hummed. “Unemployed? Definitely. Miserable? Maybe.”

Stan made a low, concerned noise. “Does this have anything to do with why I'm looking at paparazzi pictures of you sitting around outside of Harry's house at what looks like four in the morning?”

Louis coughed. “Uh.”

Stan sighed. “If it's any consolation, you look great, and they've labeled you as Harry's 'mystery man,' so whoever wrote it has never seen you hump a chair to T-Pain. But uh. Are you – will you be all right, Lou?”

“I'll find a way to be,” Louis answered, and the cheery, determined tone of his voice was so convincing that he almost fooled himself.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frida left a comment while beta reading this chapter to the effect of "Wait, isn't this a crack fic?"


	8. Chapter Eight: Differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis couldn't deal. He was tapping out, throwing in the towel, hitting the eject button, whatever other expressions there were to signify that he wasn't fucking doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super fucking late - my bad. I've had writer's block as far as this story is concerned.
> 
> Thanks to Frida for being amazing and entertaining my weird plot ideas. And of course, thanks to all of you!

Louis had every intention of spending Christmas drunk off his ass, as every twenty-something aspires to do, especially since that was how he had already spent his birthday – going to a club with Niall and taking every shot that he was offered. Louis didn't remember much of the night besides vomiting into a bush. Instead, he woke up Christmas morning at the perfectly respectable hour of eight AM, his phone blaring “Partition,” the new ringtone Louis had set for Harry.

“'Lo?” Louis mumbled after halfheartedly humming along to the song, the single syllable spoken half into his phone, half around his pillow.

“Oh my God, I'm so fucking sorry,” Harry blurted, a cacophony of sound immediately greeting Louis' ears. It sounded like Harry was in the studio – on Christmas no fucking less. What was the fucking deal with this guy? “I normally don't check my name on Google Alerts anymore, but Liam pointed out the article, and I was wondering where you had gone that night but I wanted to give you your space in case I had done something wrong, but I haven't even seen Zayn in a few days, and so I checked his Instagram and he hasn't even posted those Nike's I got him, so I knew something was definitely wrong, so I asked Liam if he knew about it, and Liam said that he thinks the two of you fought the other day and that it had something to do with that gossip article, and then he pulled it out on his phone to show me what he was talking about, and like, I'm just – I'm sorry, Louis.”

Louis had never heard Harry speak so quickly before. “Um.”

“Are you mad at me?” Harry continued, the sound of drums still loud in the background. “Did you guys fight because of me? That's definitely it, isn't it? Zayn didn't respond to my text asking if that was it, and I _told_ Zayn that we needed to stop hooking up but he told me that you weren't going to have a problem with it, but you obviously do and like – I really, really, _really_ didn't want to hurt you – that was never my intention. Like, it wasn't anything – Zayn and I kinda go back, and like Liam didn't even have a problem with Zayn and I and Liam has a problem with _everything_ and like, I know I shouldn't have just assumed that you would be fine with it too, oh my God – ”

“Uh,” Louis eloquently interrupted. “I'm not mad at you?” Although it did send a small, creeping thrill up his spine, hearing Harry say it so easily. Knowing that it was definitely true – that Zayn and Harry had been messing around.

“Is that a statement or a question?” Harry clarified.

“Both?”

Harry whined. “I don't – like – I'm confused.”

“Well, if it's any consolation, I am too. But I'm pretty sure that I'm not mad at you. Just Zayn.”

“Are you two going to be okay?” Harry asked, worry coating every word.

Louis wondered what it said about his relationship with Zayn from an outsider's perspective that Harry needed to make sure they were going to end up all right. It said a lot about the differences between Zayn and Harry, Louis knew that much – Zayn, someone that Louis instantly felt connected to, someone that drove Louis crazy with want – and Harry, who was dependable and _easy_ , a manageable simmer compared to a burning fire. Louis meant it when he called Harry his soul mate, because Harry was the prince you kiss at the end of the movie, the guy you wrap your arms around and know that everything will be all right, happily ever after, two kids and a dog. But Zayn – it was undeniable that there was something there, too. The way that Louis couldn't think past this betrayal demonstrated it. Louis wasn't quite sure what the word was for it, these intense feelings for Zayn, wasn't sure if it was fair to call Zayn anything when he was working toward having Harry, too. Louis gulped and promptly shut down this entire line of thought. Denial and avoidance had always served him well in the past. “Yeah, we'll be fine. I'll just have to like, get all the anger out of my system.”

“Do you – like.” Louis could hear the creeping frustration in Harry's voice. “Are you sure?”

Louis sighed. “Yes, Harry. I'm sure.”

“Are you. Um. Will you still want to hang out with me – knowing all of this about Zayn and I?” Harry's voice was small, hard to hear with all of the banging in the background.

“I'm honestly not mad at you, Harry,” Louis said. “Like, I think I might be disappointed? And confused as to why you and Zayn are both so incapable of fucking telling me things, but like. Not really angry. I don't know you enough to be really mad.”

Louis could practically imagine the look of distress on Harry's face. “You didn't answer my question, though. Like, would you still be all right with – hanging out? I know hooking up would be out of the question for right now – ”

“Yeah, it would be.”

“ – But could we be friends?” Harry's voice was soft, pleading. “Or like. Will you not be able to?”

“We can definitely be friends, Harry,” Louis groaned. “I just honestly need a bit of space. _Please_?”

“Yeah, all right.” Harry sounded deflated and Louis tried not to care, tried to remind himself that Harry had brought all of this on himself – Louis was just trying to protect his fragile fucking ego from these two guys who treated his heart like a target at the shooting range.

“Well, I'm sorry to have had this conversation with you on Christmas,” Harry mumbled. The drums had temporarily stopped – Louis could hear Liam yelling at Harry in the background to get out and have his heart-to-heart in the fucking hallway like a normal person. “But like. It was nice hearing your voice.”

“Merry Christmas, Harry,” Louis sighed.

“Merry Christmas, Louis,” Harry mumbled. “Wish you were here.” Louis hung up the phone and threw it onto the floor. He slowly got up out of bed, walked into the kitchen, filled up a huge bowl with water, and submerged his face into the bowl, screaming into the water until he felt mildly better.

 

Louis and Niall didn't have a real Christmas tree because they were both basically broke, but Niall had this cactus in his bedroom that they had put a few presents under. Louis had got Niall several tank tops and a snapback that Niall got way too sentimental over, and Niall got Louis a stripper pole that Louis quickly set up in the tiled section separating the kitchen from the living room.

“Couldn't you have done this in your bedroom?” Niall asked as Louis pulled on the pole firmly, guaranteeing that it was in place. Louis hadn't bolted it into the wall because he was pretty sure their landlord would kill them if he did, but Louis was also extremely wary of these allegedly “secure” no hole pressure pads. The last thing Louis would want is for him to be doing a trick, have the pole come out of place, and he bust his head open and die. Although that would be a sick way to go out – twirling about on a stripper pole. Probably the number two way to die behind having a heart attack from some amazing, white-out sex. Actually – yeah, that would be fucking awesome.

“Can't do it in my bedroom, it's all carpet,” Louis said, walking into his room to grab the bag that he mentally referred to as his “Stripper backpack.” He used to carry it around everywhere back when that was his mode of employment, and it was full of products that the girls in the clubs used to recommend him. Louis took out a small bottle of baby powder, removing his T-shirt and throwing it onto the bed and returning to the living room.

“Are you gonna want me to record this?” Niall asked, already somehow on Louis' phone and thumbing through Louis' text messages as if Louis didn't know that's what he was fucking doing, honestly, Niall was so predictable sometimes.

“Yeah,” Louis grinned. “Just a quick little thing on Instagram.”

“All right, lemme put some Justin Bieber on, that's real stripper music,” Niall said, reaching for his own phone and turning on “Fa La La.” Louis rolled his eyes as he shook a small amount of baby powder into the palms of his hands and rubbed more to the inside of his thighs. Niall gestured at Louis to start once they reached the chorus and Louis reached his arm high up on the pole, twirling himself around it to gain a bit more height and then stepping his way back down to the floor. Louis pushed his fringe out of his eyes and spun around the pole once more, bracing his arms apart as he lifted his body horizontally. Niall wolf whistled and Louis pulled a face as he lowered himself back to the ground, eventually yelling, “Merry Christmas!” as Niall cackled.

“That's going to be a popular one,” Niall mused. “Should've put a Santa hat on, though, to make it super Christmas-y.”

“More like on my dick,” Louis muttered. “Although I didn't know you were going to get me a stripper pole. We could've planned this better.”

Niall shrugged, stating, “We can now,” before frowning down at Louis' phone. “Uh, Lou. Have you checked your timeline today?”

Louis shook his head. “All I've done is this, basically.”

Niall's frown deepened. “Grab your laptop, yeah?”

Louis went into his bedroom, but wasn't able to find his laptop in all of his usual places – on the bed, in his sock drawer, or buried underneath his shoes. It took them twenty minutes before they were able to find it underneath the bathroom sink, and then Louis and Niall sat together on the couch, Niall taking Louis' computer into his lap and pulling up Louis' “Sources of my Imminent Destruction” tab in Chrome. Louis frowned as Niall tabbed through to Zayn's Twitter, scrolling through a handful of tweets before finding one from something like an hour ago – a link to YouTube. Niall clicked on it and Louis immediately knew that whatever this video was, he wasn't going to like it. Niall hit the play button once the page finished loading, and immediately Louis was confronted with Zayn's gorgeous ass face.

“Uh, hi, Merry Christmas,” Zayn said, waving awkwardly at the camera. He was clean-shaven, wearing glasses with a beanie smashed over his hair. He looked stupidly young and Louis wanted to jump his bones. “I know I haven't uploaded any videos in ages but like, I don't know. I've been busy, or something.” Zayn licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, revealing an iPad in his lap. “You guys have been asking for a new cover video, but like. This video is going to be for someone special. He knows who he is – hell, most of you who've paid attention on Twitter and Tumblr probably know who I'm talking about.” Zayn looked right into the camera, took a deep breath, and said, “I'm sorry, babe. I should've told you – fuck. Everything. And I – there aren't words, yeah? But, I'm willing to put in the work now, if you are. I'm sick of hiding behind all of the one-night stands and Snapchat flings. It's always just been you. So yeah. This song is for you.” Zayn unlocked the iPad and scrolled through it for a few moments until the sound of Ginuwine's “Differences” started playing. Louis completely froze – could remember the conversation so clearly – Zayn was drunk, because when wasn't he, but they were talking about weddings for some reason, and Zayn said, “I want to play 'Differences' at my wedding,” and Louis admitted that he had never heard the song, Zayn eventually pulled it up and crooned it to Louis over Skype until calling it a night, and Louis listened to the song every day for the next three weeks, thinking that a drunk Zayn at three in the morning sang it miles better than Ginuwine, not willing to admit that he was listening to it nonstop because it made him feel –

_This wasn't fair_. Zayn was gorgeous and smart and funny and talented and was singing a song for him – obviously it was for him, Zayn was making this _their_ song now, wasn't he, and on top of it he sounded _so good_ – and Louis couldn't deal. He was tapping out, throwing in the towel, hitting the eject button, whatever other expressions there were to signify that he wasn't fucking doing this.

“I'm going to go and drink my weight in Bailey's,” Louis announced, getting off the couch and doing just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol why is this story so sad all of a sudden


	9. Chapter Nine: Pop Rocks Ass Buffet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This will very likely be a Very Big Mistake,” the very small but highly rational part of Louis' mind warned him. He grabbed his car keys, phone, and wallet and left the apartment anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Frida for leaving comments like "ayy lmao" and "wey hey!" on the Word Doc I opened for this chapter. And thanks to all of you for still reading!
> 
> Also this chapter's title comes from an actual conversation I had with Frida, Savannah and Kristi on Twitter sooooo yeah.

Zayn called a few days later. Louis watched his name flash across his phone screen and let it go to voicemail. “Niall told me you saw the video.” Zayn's voice was tiny, unsure. “I'm sorry if I made things worse. I just. God, Louis, I don't even know if I have the right words for you anymore – ”

Louis deleted the voicemail and rolled back over in bed.

 

The day before New Year's Eve, Louis was unfortunately back to scrolling through one of the tabs in the “Sources of My Imminent Destruction” window. Louis and Harry had been texting, but it was very cordial, rather cold. Liam had sent Louis a DM – “R u & Harry cool or nooooo? He's been all offfff =(” and Louis had replied with as reassuring a response as he could manage in 140 characters. But like – Louis had been lying a bit when he said he wasn't mad at Harry. He was actually fucking furious. The more he thought about it, the more upset he got, so he just tried not to think about it. Tried not to dwell on it.

Louis knew that Harry and Liam were both invited to some super exclusive holiday party for New Year's Eve, and Niall was going to hang out with this crew of Irish LA kids that he messed about with occasionally, which left Louis with absolutely no fucking plans. Not that he minded – he was perfectly fine poisoning his liver with two new bottles of dirt cheap champagne that he had picked up from Target earlier in the week.

That didn't explain why he was trolling Zayn's Tumblr though, turning anon on and asking Zayn what his plans were for the big day. Louis knew that Zayn was perfectly capable of searching the IP address of any and all anons that he got but meh – Louis was hoping that Zayn wouldn't.

Zayn replied to the message in minutes – “Pining.” This pathetic fuck. Louis picked up his phone and opened up the one Whatsapp chat that he hadn't looked at in days, punching in, “Hey, Zayn. Can I see you?” without thinking about it too hard. It was just – fuck, Zayn was his best friend, save Niall, and like. Louis missed him. A fuckton.

Louis was also a bit horny. He realized how stupid it would be to hook up with Zayn while he was in an emotionally fragile state but like, ideally Louis would yell at Zayn some and then bang him. Yelling did help get Louis off most of the time. So yeah. He would unload some of his emotional baggage onto Zayn, maybe even work some shit out, and get laid in the process. Win-win.

Louis was always good at working through all of the reasons why something was a Bad Idea and then doing it anyway. Emotional masochism at its best.

Zayn replied almost instantaneously. “Out or can we watch Thor at my house?”

“Your house is fine.”

“This will very likely be a Very Big Mistake,” the very small but highly rational part of Louis' mind warned him. He grabbed his car keys, phone, and wallet and left the apartment anyway.

 

“I actually didn't know you were famous when I first started talking to you,” Louis said the minute Zayn opened the door to his apartment.

“Um,” Zayn replied, running his hand through his hair. He was beautiful as usual – still clean-shaven, but the sides of his hair were freshly buzzed, only emphasizing the extreme length of his quiff, and he was dressed simply in red basketball shorts and a black and yellow Batman tank top. “I'm not, not really.”

Louis hummed and nodded a bit. Zayn stepped back, allowing for Louis to walk past him and shutting the door. Zayn's apartment was almost like a mirror of his own – the kitchen flipped so it was on the left when Louis walked in instead of the right, a small hallway leading to the living room, two bedrooms and a rather spacious bathroom. Zayn's carpet was nicer, though, as were the appliances in his kitchen – all stainless steel and marble counter tops – and his entire space was actually decorated so it looked like real people, instead of an Irish leprechaun and an emotionally stunted former stripper, actually lived there – a framed and autographed Scarface poster hanging over the couch, a bookcase filled with awards pushed against the far wall, and artwork and photographs everywhere.

Louis meandered into the living room, taking a seat on the sectional which felt like real leather instead of the secondhand fake stuff Louis and Niall had in their own space, and glancing over at the television. Zayn padded into the kitchen, pouring out two drinks for Louis and himself and coming back, handing Louis his cup.

“Ginger beer,” Zayn explained with a shrug, sitting on the other end of the sectional and looking distinctly uncomfortable. Louis smiled and took a sip, sighing at the fizzy taste of alcohol.

“I kind of figured,” Zayn continued, gesturing backwards, and Louis remembered with a jolt – oh yeah, they had been talking about Zayn being famous or whatever. “I mean, you never brought up any of my shows as a way of making fun of me, so. And it was nice, meeting someone who didn't care. But like, it doesn't change anything, does it?” Zayn leaned back in his seat, watching Louis drink and licking his lips nervously, as if there was any chance that Louis would stop being his friend or something equally ridiculous.

“'Course not,” Louis replied easily. “I'm still furious with you, though.”

“Yeah?” Zayn asked, frowning.

“Yeah. That stunt you pulled with that YouTube video – ”

“I wasn't trying to like, I don't know.” Zayn looked miserable. Louis firmly reminded himself whose fault that was, reminded himself that it wasn't his own. “I just thought it'd make you happy.”

“It was a tad emotionally manipulative,” Louis said, proud of himself for not stumbling over the  
words, sounding sure, voice not wavering in the least. “Like, I wasn't there in person, but you put all of our shit out there in public so it might as well have been like you were begging for forgiveness in front of a huge crowd. _And_ my mentions have been blowing up like crazy.”

Zayn opened his mouth and closed it, a contemplative expression on his face. “I – uh. I honestly didn't think of it that way.”

Louis sighed. “I know you didn't. But like – that's what it was, you know?” Zayn nodded, slowly and then faster when he caught Louis smirking at him.

“What?”

“You're just so fucking gorgeous,” Louis confessed. “Okay, now that we talked through some of our issues, can I fuck you?”

Zayn pulled a face. “Are you – seriously? I wanted to watch Thor or Iron Man or something.”

Louis scoffed. “I didn't come over here to watch Marvel movies with you, Zayn.”

“You wanted to come talk for a bit and then fuck?” Zayn clarified.

“Yup!” Louis exclaimed. “You down?” Zayn shrugged. This was not the enthusiastic response Louis had anticipated. “Wow. Jump for joy, why don't you.”

“Casual sex hasn't exactly gotten me anywhere very good lately,” Zayn explained. “Like _duh_ , come on, babe. I mean – sometimes, like, you meet someone. And they're awesome and you fuck around a bit, it's all good. And then you meet someone else, and they're awesome, too. So then like, you wanna fuck around with them both and you do, so then you just kind of wait to see how long it takes for everything to blow up in your face.”

Louis screwed up his face in absolute confusion. “What the fuck are you even trying to say?”

“I'm trying to say – I don't know. I've always been like this. People come into my life, usually in fucking pairs, I suppose. So like, yeah, I have my cake and eat it too. I take a bite from everything at the fucking buffet and then screw stuff up with everyone and then don't have any fucking friends and end up talking to strangers on the Internet all day.”

Louis was silent for a moment, processing all of the information that Zayn just unloaded onto him. “Um. An ass buffet?”

Zayn groaned. “Did you listen to _anything_ I just said?”

“No, I did,” Louis admitted. “I'm just using levity because I don't know what to do with it right now. Uh. Maybe I'll just go?”

Zayn shrugged but Louis could see the hurt behind his eyes. “I mean, if you think that's best.”

“Um, yeah,” Louis said. “This was probably a mistake – so yeah. My bad. I'll see you later, all right?”

Louis let himself out.

 

Approximately two hours and several shots later, Louis was sitting on the couch, half-buried under a mountain of comforters and watching a stream of Boyz n the Hood, because it had been on his to-watch list forever and _not_ because Zayn had passingly said it was one of his favorite movies, once, and had subsequently left Louis a very slurred voice memo on Whatsapp (“Watch this movie ASAP, you stupid white boy!”) when a knock came to his door. Louis paused the movie, putting his laptop on the coffee table and climbing over the Mount Kilimanjaro of blankets. Louis didn't look through the peep hole and instead just threw the door open, vaguely surprised to see Zayn standing there.

“Uh, hey – ” Louis started but Zayn darted forward, mashing their faces together and cutting off whatever Louis was going to say.

It wasn't a particularly sexy kiss. For one, Louis couldn't really breathe because of the way Zayn had attacked his mouth. Secondly, their teeth clanged really uncomfortably, and Zayn's tongue tasted strongly of Smirnoff Ice, which was really surprising since Zayn probably could afford better alcohol than the type of stuff Louis had been sipping on since he was like, thirteen. However, once Louis' teeth stopped aching, Louis could relax into it all, humming and grabbing Zayn by his bony hips, pulling him into the apartment and slamming the door shut, pressing Zayn against it. Zayn hit the wood with a small “Oof,” and Louis smirked, attaching his lips to Zayn's neck and inhaling the strange mix of Gucci by Gucci, cheap liquor, cigarette smoke, and Los Angeles smog that clung to Zayn's skin. Zayn groaned when Louis ran his lips over a sensitive spot at the juncture between Zayn's neck and shoulder so Louis sucked there energetically, letting his fingers slide from Zayn's neck to cup his ass. “Fuck,” Zayn swore lowly and Louis pulled away to grin at Zayn, drinking in the sight – Zayn alternately licking and biting at his own lips, a purpling bruise on his neck, and _fuck_.

“I want to ruin you,” Louis confessed.

Zayn smirked. “I'd like to see you try,” he goaded and – well shit, that was all Louis needed.

Louis had to admit – kissing wasn't always his thing. It was nice and all, but most of the time he kind of wanted to get straight to business, mashing faces just a prequel to the main attraction of sucking dick or getting his cock in someone. With Zayn though – Louis wanted to kiss him forever. So he did, aligning his body along Zayn's and licking into his mouth, taking his time with it, alternating bruising, almost painful bites with languid tongue fucking. It was absolutely fucking lovely, sent tendrils of contentment throughout his body, a heavy weight of happiness settling low in his groin as he felt himself swell along Zayn's thigh. And Zayn was into it, too – Louis could feel Zayn's smile against his own, swallowed Zayn's heavy moans and sighs, groaned himself as he felt Zayn thick and hard against him.

“Bed?” Zayn mumbled.

“Here is fine,” Louis replied, all of his words said against Zayn's mouth. “I've always wanted to fuck against this front door.”

“Where's Niall?” Zayn asked, huffing out a laugh and pulling back to stroke at Louis' cheek.

“Out. McDonald's? I don't know.”

“What do you want to do?”

Louis shrugged, a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. What _didn't_ he want to do with Zayn? He wanted to marathon movies with him. He wanted to post really obnoxious pictures of the two of them together on Instagram, captioning them with Drunk in Love lyrics. He wanted to have a threesome with Zayn and Harry, and go around introducing Zayn as his boyfriend and Harry as his potential soulmate. He also wanted to maybe go to the carnival with Zayn, or the Fresno Fair. Sexually, he desperately wanted to fuck his face, but he also would not turn down sucking Zayn off again, or get him on all fours, eat him out until he was crying, and then fuck him into unconsciousness.

“Can I eat you out?” Louis asked. “And then fuck you?”

Zayn scrunched up his nose. “That's not an impromptu activity, you know.”

Louis shrugged. “You could take a shower and then I can eat candy off you.”

Zayn stared at Louis. “What.” It wasn't even a question.

“I just bought some Pop Rocks from Target. I wanted to see what would happen if I ate them with champagne for New Years.”

“Do you even listen to yourself?” Zayn asked rather seriously. “Like honestly? I don't want to like, insult whatever gets you off, but _seriously_?”

“ _Or_ I could fuck your face,” Louis suggested.

“Did you throw out something outrageous just so I would agree to vigorous oral sex?” Zayn shrewdly deduced.

“No, I am serious about the pop rocks ass buffet,” Louis said. “But I would not turn down getting my dick in your mouth.”

“You're insane,” Zayn said, but he sank to his knees anyway, popping open Louis' jeans and pulling Louis' dick out through the flap in his boxers, which Louis always thought was a little seedy, but hey, Zayn was a little seedy, and Louis was definitely more than a little seedy, so it worked out, especially when Zayn just hocked back and spat onto Louis' dick, taking a deep breath before easily swallowing Louis into his mouth, just like a porn star.

“Oh God,” Louis cursed as Zayn hallowed his cheeks and began sucking Louis energetically. “I'm going to die.” Louis could feel Zayn's resulting chuckle around his cock and God, he never seriously thought this day was going to happen.

Zayn gave really good head, Louis realized. He _definitely_ had the technique of an adult entertainer, though – making sure Louis' cock was nice and wet, all baby doll eyes when he looked up at Louis through his eyelashes, hallowing his cheeks and blinking at Louis like he was some doe-eyed virgin who just happened to have their lips wrapped around a dick. Zayn moaned at all the right moments, knew exactly when to pull off just to tongue Louis' slit or wrap his lips around Louis' balls, not caring that he had spit and precome all over his face, just grinning prettily at Louis through it all. Louis wanted to cry or come and he hadn't even gotten his dick all the way down Zayn's throat yet.

“Please,” Louis begged. “C'mon, Zayn, please.”

“All right, all right,” Zayn agreed, voice fucking ruined. Louis wanted to hear him try to sing Ginuwine like _this_. “Want me like this?” he asked, sticking his tongue out obnoxiously.

“Shut up,” Louis said, punctuating it by taking his dick and slapping it against Zayn's tongue. “Zayn, _please_.”

“You know I can't deny you anything,” Zayn croaked. “Not anymore.”

“Less emotional declarations, more sucking my dick, please.”

Zayn rolled his eyes but pushed Louis' jeans and underwear down to his ankles. Louis braced himself against the door and Zayn smiled as he took Louis into his mouth again, only humming lightly when Louis pressed himself so far that he could feel the fluttering of Zayn's throat around him. Louis hesitantly looked down at Zayn, who nodded imperceptibly, his eyes narrowed in a challenge. Louis took a deep breath and pulled back before thrusting further, starting up a slow rhythm that picked up once Louis happened to glance down and see Zayn palming himself through his board shorts. Louis moaned, fucking harder into Zayn's mouth, his fingernails scratching against the door before he remembered his earlier vow to ruin Zayn, carding his fingers into Zayn's thick strands, pulling at his quiff, scratching against his shaved scalp.

It was super hot and over really quickly, Louis pulling out of Zayn's mouth and coming all over his face.

“Thanks,” Zayn said, looking a little annoyed as he wiped semen off of his cheek. Louis laughed and slumped to the ground, watching intently as Zayn then thrust his own shorts down, using Louis' come as lube to get himself off. It was gross, but also hot, so Louis was into it, even though there was now a lot of spunk on his front door. His whole apartment would be needing a deep clean if Louis had his way with Zayn, though.

Zayn came into the palm of his hand, looking at it with a bit of distaste before glancing into the kitchen, eyes widening.

“Oh fuck, is that a stripper pole?” he asked, wiping his hand off on Louis' thigh.

“Yeah, and it's awesome,” Louis mumbled before promptly falling asleep, pants and boxers still around his ankles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how this fic was supposed to be 100% Larry


	10. Chapter Ten: Nobody Cares About Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis had a brilliant idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Frida. Thanks to all of you. This chapter is a little late but now I'm posting it at 6:30 in the morning. So!

Louis had never anticipated that this would be his life. Like, he had kind of distantly fantasized about it for ages but like. This was unreal. He and Zayn didn't actually leave Louis' apartment all weekend. It was almost like they were on a honeymoon or something, Louis sending Niall a quick text the first night asking Niall if it was all right if he had the apartment to himself for a few hours, Niall responding with a string of incomprehensible emojiis that Louis interpreted as agreement, and then Zayn and Louis spending a handful of blissful, rose-hued days where they fucked on every vaguely flat surface, taking breaks only to sleep and order Chinese food.

It was – well. It was fucking great. Awesome. Amazing.

Louis had never truly had a real relationship before, and if the way Zayn reverentially accustomed himself to Louis' body, mesmerizing every tremor of Louis' thighs, attaching his lips to every inch of skin he could manage, Louis assumed that Zayn had had a similar experience.

And Zayn was a fucking great boyfriend. Wow. _Boyfriend_. Louis couldn't even imagine that was a real sentence he could actually say at this point.

Zayn Malik, his boyfriend.

Well, yeah. Zayn was a fucking great boyfriend. Super over the top in his displays of affection, at least at this point, a few days into this brand new, shiny, exhilarating relationship. He ordered all the take-out, went out briefly to get Louis his favorite Starbucks, tweeted a bunch of over the top sappy things about this new development in his life, and at one point pulled Louis into his lap, snapping a quick picture and posting it to Instagram.

Louis was so fucking wrapped up in this new thing with Zayn that he kind of forgot that absolutely nothing with Harry was resolved. Which was why he didn't see this particular phone call coming at all.

“Oh, why, Harry Styles, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Louis greeted, putting his phone on speaker as he went into the kitchen and pulled down two bowls for Zayn and himself. Even from his place in the living room, Louis noticed that Zayn went suddenly very still.

“Are you and Zayn dating?” Harry demanded. His voice sounded slightly slurred. Louis checked the time on his microwave's clock – it was two-thirty in the afternoon. On a Sunday. Louis hoped this was a brunch-induced slur and not like, Louis-induced. It was a difference between mimosas and whiskey. Both delicious, but one was more socially acceptable on Sunday afternoons.

“Um,” Louis answered eloquently.

“Whatever, I already know the answer since Zayn posted about it on Instagram,” Harry retorted. Nope, that wasn't slightly slurred – that was full on drunk slurring, “Instagram” not even sounding like a real word the way it emerged garbled off Harry's tongue. “'Oh, aha, me and my new boyfriend, look how happy we are, aha suck it, Styles, I got him and not you,'” Harry mocked in a rather accurate, albeit very mean approximation of Zayn's accent. “Nobody cares about Harry. You're both awful people.”

“Harry, it's not like that,” Louis protested.

“Oh, then what is it like, Louis?” Harry demanded. “What's the missing piece?”

“I just – ”

“Oh whatever, fuck off,” Harry retorted. “You're both so mean. I'm so _sad_.”

“Harry – ”

“Someday I'll be living in a big old city,” Harry screeched. “And all you'll ever be is mean.”

“Did you just quote Taylor Swift at me?” Louis asked. “Is that really what just happened?”

There was a bit of jostling in the background, Liam's voice quietly but firmly demanding, “Give me the phone, Harry” as Harry let out a string of sniffles and yelled out something that sounded rather like, “Zayn's an actor, not an actress, but he's better known for the things that he does on the mattress.” Louis cursed himself for recognizing the adapted Taylor Swift lyrics as he listened to Liam sigh softly, greeting Louis with a soft, “Hello, Louis.”

“Um, hi, Liam.”

“Well, this is a mess,” Liam said with a small, self-effacing chuckle. “Harry's been drinking all morning. I thought I hid his phone well enough from him, but here we are.”

Louis gulped, didn't know how to even start. “Look, Liam, I didn't think – ”

“I know, you didn't _think_ about Harry's feelings at all,” Liam said, his voice cool and distant. It completely startled Louis, and he leaned back a bit from his phone at the sudden change in tone. “I don't care what you and Zayn are doing – I haven't cared about who Zayn has been sleeping with in ages, and you're nice enough. But you don't just fuck my best friend and then go flouncing around, parading your new, plastic relationship with one of _his_ best friends a few weeks later.”

“But that's not – ”

“You're extremely selfish, and in that regard you and Zayn are perfect for each other,” Liam plowed forward. “I'm just sad that Harry got roped into your protracted mating ritual.”

“But it's not _like_ that,” Louis interjected. “Zayn and I are together, but that doesn't mean all of my feelings for Harry just fucking evaporated. I want to be with him, too – I just haven't talked to Zayn about it, is all.”

“What are you saying?” Liam asked. “You want to date both of them?”

“I mean, like, ideally – ”

“You're a fucking idiot,” Liam said. “I'm sorry for swearing. But you, and Zayn, and Harry. You're all idiots and I did not sign up for this.”

“Right,” Louis agreed, staring down at his phone as Liam hung up on him. Louis chewed the skin on the inside of his mouth for a few moments before he looked up through the living room and locked eyes with Zayn, who had an expression on his face like he was barely resisting the urge to bolt back to his own apartment.

“Do you want to get rid of me already?” Zayn asked finally, cautiously.

“What? God, no.”

“Because if you just want Harry, you can say so,” Zayn continued, awkwardly rubbing at the short hair on the side of his head. “I figured this would happen, anyway. Best friends never work out as anything more, right?”

“Zayn, did you just hear me at all?”

“I mean, it's not like I'm fucking _in love_ with you already or anything.” Louis suddenly realized that Zayn was not listening at all, but just needed to get all of this off of his chest before he combusted or something. “Because like, how can you be in love with someone you met over the internet? Like, Catfish has showed us all that that's a stupid life strategy.”

“Hmm.”

“And I was only sleeping with other people to make you jealous, and like – I knew that you wanted me that way, too, but I knew I wouldn't be able to separate the two – emotions from just sex. So I just fucked strangers, and then Harry, because he was always down for it and a good time, and then you two started talking and I was just so fucking jealous and I didn't even know how to vocalize it, especially when you were throwing around big words like 'soul mate' and 'forever' and you hadn't even fucking _talked_ to him really – ”

“How do you live with all of this inside of your head?” Louis asked. “Should I be concerned?”

“But I thought we had gotten to a point where we could talk to each other?” Zayn took a deep breath and looked up at Louis, his eyes slightly wet. “So have you only been sleeping with me the past few days to prove a point or something? Is it time for you to go back to Harry, now?”

“Zayn, I'm gonna put this in the only way I know how to, all right?” Louis said, walking out of the kitchen, cereal bowls forgotten when he sat next to Zayn on the sofa, gathering Zayn's hands into his own. “I really like Harry, he's good people. But I fucking _love_ you, all right?”

Zayn looked hesitantly optimistic. “Are you sure?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I was so fucking upset with you? That's not platonic-inspired anger. And this isn't about getting back at you – if I wanted to do that I would've taken pictures of you and put them on the internet already. I'm weirdly obsessed with you, you idiot. And like – yeah I wanna hook up with Harry and go on dates with him, but that doesn't mean my feelings for you are any less real. I mean like – worst case scenario Harry and I get married and then you're going to be my best man and I'll fuck you after the ceremony. That's the tradition, right?”

Zayn frowned, looking absolutely adorable in his confusion. “I'm pretty sure that's not how that goes.”

“No, I think I read it somewhere? Like the bride and the best man usually hook up, right?”

Zayn laughed, taking his hand out of Louis' lap to rub at his eyes a bit. “No, Louis, that's the maid of honor and the best man.”

Louis shrugged. “Same thing.”

“They're really not, babe.”

Louis leaned forward, pecking Zayn sweetly on the mouth. Zayn smiled, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Hey,” Louis said, somewhat stupidly.

“Hey,” Zayn murmured back.

“Made you smile.”

Zayn leaned forward, kissing Louis until Louis forgot what they had even been talking about.

 

The next day, Louis had a brilliant idea.

“We should have a threesome,” Louis said, jumping into Zayn's lap and disrupting whatever corny, over the top tweet he was tapping out on his phone.

Zayn pulled a face, grimacing at Louis. “With Harry? That's a fucking stupid idea.”

“The fact that you knew I was talking about Harry without even saying his name proves that it's a _great_ idea,” Louis replied. “Come on, Zayn. You've slept with him, I've given him a blowjob in the shower, I want to fuck your face while he's watching – why not combine it all so it all happens at once?”

“Normally people don't propose threesomes one weekend into a relationship,” Zayn answered. “Should I be concerned?”

“Should _I_ be concerned?” Niall interjected from where he was sitting on Zayn's other side on the couch. Louis honestly hadn't even seen him there, hadn't even known that Niall had come home. “You two are just discussing threesomes on my fucking couch like I'm not here, or anything.”

“If it's any consolation, we'd probably have the threesome in Harry's place,” Louis answered.

“You're acting like Harry would agree,” Zayn pointed out. “He _hates_ me right now.”

Louis scoffed. “No, he doesn't.”

“Nah, he legitimately does,” Niall countered. “I read about it on Oh No They Didn't this morning. Apparently Harry was drunk at Umami Burger last night and someone asked him about you guys.”

“People talk about you on Oh No They Didn't?” Louis asked. “Zayn, how famous are you?”

Zayn rolled his eyes as Niall uselessly answered, “Zayn's mostly famous for posting beats on the internet for free and hanging out with Harry at this point, I think.”

 

Trying to negotiate the threesome with Harry did actually prove to be a mild inconvenience, considering Harry did indeed seem to be extremely pissed with Zayn at the moment.

“You do realize that if you should be mad at anyone, it should be me, right?” Louis asked, making a frowny face at his phone. Louis had somehow wheedled Harry into accepting a FaceTime call, shushing Zayn out of the room while they talked. “I was into Zayn before I ever hooked up with you, and it was tremendously selfish of me to not tell you that I had a tremendous crush on him.”

“No, Zayn's an asshole,” Harry answered, pouting a bit. He had giant Beats by Dre headphones on and pronounced bags under his eyes where he was looking down at his phone. According to several Harry Styles update accounts, Harry was at a studio somewhere outside of LA, but it was quiet in the background for once. Louis assumed Harry had hid out in a conference room or something to take the call. “We'd been hooking up for fucking ages, and then he tells me to follow you and get to know you, and then has a giant hissy fit when I do. He's being an immature dick. If he fucking wanted you he should've gone after you from jump, and I never would've gotten my feelings all twisted into this shit.”

“Well, yeah, you're right, Zayn was a bit of an asshole,” Louis acknowledged. “But we all do dumb stuff when we like someone.” Harry hummed a bit like he didn't agree and Louis sighed. “Harry, was the thing you and Zayn had – are you sure that it was just sex?”

“'Course it was,” Harry mumbled.

“No, Harry. Are you _sure_? Because like – Zayn and Liam kind of dated, right? And Liam's your bestie. Not to go all Guy Code on you, but normally people don't promptly start up a friends with benefits relationship with the guy their best friend was with, and like – Liam seemed super cool with it all. Why?” Harry was quiet for a long, protracted moment, long enough that Louis thought his phone had frozen. “Harry?”

“I'm still here,” Harry answered, licking his lips and shifting a bit uncomfortably. “I mean. I've never _thought_ about it. But. Yeah. Maybe there's. Maybe there's something there.”

“Splendid,” Louis said. “So, I think I found a way to sort this whole thing out. Let's have a threesome.”

“ _What_?” Harry screeched. “You don't – you can't just spring the threesome idea on someone!”

“'Course I can,” Louis answered breezily. “We've already had poorly planned sexual experiences in pairs – what difference would it make if all three of us had a poorly planned sexual experience together?”

“This is a horrible idea,” Harry mumbled, scrubbing at his eyes.

“That's not a 'no,'” Louis pointed out.

And it wasn't.

 

As far as threesomes went, it wasn't like it was _bad_. In fact, purely pleasure-wise, it was pretty awesome – definitely more sexually satisfying than the time this girl had come up to Louis at the club, pointing at her boyfriend, herself, and then Louis and waggling her eyebrows until Louis was balls deep in her, and had her boyfriend inside of him. That had been a nice threesome, too, until the girlfriend started to cry and told her boyfriend that she wanted to break up. That part hadn't been too awesome.

But this – purely pleasure-wise, it was pretty amazing. It was decidedly awkward at the start, though, now that it was like, actually happening. And looking back on it, it probably _wasn't_ Louis' best idea. Especially when he was sitting on Harry's bed, completely naked, watching as Harry and Zayn made out.

“I can't tell if I'm more jealous, or aroused,” Louis commented as Harry growled against Zayn's mouth and grabbed a fistful of Zayn's hair. “I _think_ I might be more jealous, but I'm not sure who I'm even jealous of.”

“Shut up, Louis, this was your fucking idea,” Zayn mumbled, reaching out blindly in Louis' general direction. Louis sighed and crawled across the bed, letting Zayn grab him in by the hips. Zayn broke away from Harry's mouth and immediately latched his lips onto Louis'. Louis could feel Harry's intense gaze on them and looked up, fucking his tongue into Zayn's mouth as Harry watched hungrily.

“How is this going to work?” Harry asked lowly, clearing his throat as he wrapped a hand around his dick. “I've never had a threesome before.”

“Really?” Louis asked, pulling away from Zayn. “But like – they're the best!”

“I haven't either,” Zayn admitted. “This was clearly Louis' idea, so we should just do what he says.”

“I'm still stuck on the part where you two have never had a threesome,” Louis said. “You're both famous! That's what you do when you're famous – have threesomes! Moresomes! Full out orgies, get a little boom boom in the champagne room and all that.”

“How many threesomes have you had then?” Harry asked.

Louis shrugged. “Like six?”

“Like six,” Zayn repeated.

“Approximately six,” Louis corrected. “Maybe more? I can't with math. I only remember one of them, really, but the other five or so definitely happened.”

“How do you not remember all of the threesomes that you've had?” Harry asked, not even meanly, just like he was legitimately curious. “Were they not good?”

“Yeah, to be honest most of the times threesomes are rather overrated, just like most sexual experiences – ”

“Okay, we're getting distracted,” Zayn interrupted. “How do you want us, Louis?”

Louis shrugged. “Um. What do you two want to do?”

Zayn mumbled something that sounded treacherously like, “I told you this was going to be fucking stupid.”

“I want to fuck you, Louis,” Harry said suddenly, loudly. Zayn glared at Harry.

“I haven't even gotten to fuck him yet,” Zayn frowned. “That's not fair.”

“You can both fuck me, Jesus Christ,” Louis answered, rolling his eyes. “I'm not a new toy at the preschool, by the way. Let's do it like this, yeah? Zayn, I'll blow you while Harry preps me, then he'll fuck me, and after he's come I want you two to make out a little bit over me while you fuck me. Sound good?”

“Do I have to use a condom?” Harry asked. “Zayn and I always went bareback.”

Louis looked to Zayn, who shrugged. “He's clean, if that's what you're silently asking me,” Zayn replied.

“Do you want Harry to pull out or not?” Louis asked.

Zayn frowned. “Why are you asking me?”

“I don't fucking – I'm just trying to be considerate? You know what, Harry? Do whatever, I don't care. Zayn, come here.” And Louis pushed Zayn against the bed, pulling on his hair once, sharply, before slinking down his body, wrapping a comfortable hand around Zayn's dick before spitting on it, jerking Zayn slowly as his eyes went dark and greedy and his body was thrumming deliciously underneath Louis' confident hands. Louis looked up at Harry, who was watching the two of them with that same intense, hungry look, and winked. “Just – c'mon with it, Lou,” Zayn begged, pushing at Louis' head.

Louis grinned and licked a thick stripe up the side of Zayn's cock, humming against it when he heard Zayn curse lowly. Louis felt the bed dip beside him and started when Harry's hand came smartly against his ass.

“Sorry, couldn't help myself,” Harry murmured.

“Do it again,” Louis commanded, wincing deliciously when Harry smacked his other cheek. “Please, again.”

“Wish I had a camera.” Zayn had propped himself up on his elbows and was smirking at the two of them. “You should prop him over your knee, Harry.”

“Maybe next time,” Harry said with a smirk, slapping Louis' ass one last time before massaging the skin there and pulling Louis's cheeks apart, running his tongue from Louis' sack to his hole.

“Oh fuck,” Louis mumbled, rocking his ass against Harry's face. “Shit, I didn't know you were going to eat me out.”

“You said to prep you, yeah,” Harry answered, punctuating his statement by running the tip of his tongue around Louis' hole. Louis whimpered, his dick flexing up and bobbing against his stomach. It just felt so good and Zayn was still looking at him with these gorgeous, dark, hooded eyes. Louis groaned, rocking back again, before remembering the task at hand and wrapping his lips around Zayn, who sighed softly and fell back against the bed.

It went like that for a few slow, delicious moments – Harry pressing his tongue further and further inside of Louis before adding broad, long fingers that were slicked with cool lube. Louis was humming and moaning around Zayn's cock, sucking like his whole life depended on it, and Zayn had gathered Louis' hair back into one fist, breathing loudly through his nose as his eyes alternated between Louis and Harry. Louis pulled off of Zayn, stroking him lightly, just teasingly, before he croaked out, “I'm ready, Harry.”

Harry huffed out an impatient breath, pulling his fingers out of Louis slowly. Louis tapped his fingers against Zayn's hip and Zayn got the message, getting up on his knees so that his dick bobbed right in front of Louis' face. Louis braced himself up on his own hands and knees, doggy style, and grinned up at Zayn, mouthing the words “Eiffel Tower.” Louis could hear Harry slicking himself up with lube and then the tip of him was right there, nudging against Louis. “Tell me if I need to stop, all right?” Harry gritted out.

“I'll be fine,” Louis said encouragingly as Zayn's hand came to rest on his cheek. Harry mumbled something in response that Louis couldn't hear over the rushing in his own ears as Harry pushed into him, slowly and perfectly, Louis closing his eyes and letting out a high pitched mewl. Harry stopped, probably only about half in, and Louis goaded, “What'd you stop for?” until Louis could feel Harry all the way in him, the tickle of Harry's pubic bone pressing against him.

“Fuck, you took him all in in one go,” Zayn said. “I've never been able to – ”

“Stop talking, put your dick in my mouth,” Louis interrupted, punctuating it by sticking his tongue out. Zayn raised his eyebrows and did as he was told, gripping Louis by the back of the head and pressing in, fucking Louis' mouth in slow, shallow thrusts.

It was overwhelming, Louis' senses on fire, his arms straining where he had Harry pushing into him from behind in these long, almost reverential strokes, Harry's thickness hitting just where he needed to, and Zayn fucking into his mouth, pushing the boundaries of Louis' gag reflex. Louis was probably, very likely, going to die from how good it was, especially when he looked up and saw that Zayn and Harry were leaned into each other over him, more breathing and licking into each other's mouths than actually _kissing_ –

And that was all it took apparently, because Louis was coming all over the comforter, dick untouched where it had been slapping against his belly. Zayn swore, letting go of Louis' head, and Louis fell into the wet spot underneath him, nowhere close to concerned about the mess he had just made. Harry babbled something unintelligible and then Louis could feel Harry spilling into him, thick, hot and warm where it dribbled down the inside of his thigh. Harry pulled out slowly and then collapsed somewhere behind Louis. Louis looked up in time to see Zayn gripping the base of his own dick, face screwed up uncomfortably.

“Are you trying not to come?” Louis asked sleepily.

“ _Yes_ ,” Zayn gritted out.

“You should fuck me before I pass out,” Louis suggested.

“Yes,” Zayn agreed, letting go of his own dick and grabbing Louis' arm, manhandling him until Louis was lying at the edge of the bed, on his back and facing Zayn. Harry crawled over, dick still hard and his phone in hand. Zayn caught sight of it and immediately said, “Whatever you're thinking – no.”

“You just said that you wished you had a camera,” Harry smirked. “Wouldn't be the first time I've recorded something and then sent it to Louis – I know he doesn't mind.”

Zayn turned to Louis who grinned, even though his entire body was thrumming with the strong urge to go to sleep. “'S true.”

“Well, fuck then,” Zayn said. “Record whatever you want, Harry.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Harry said, pumping his arm in victory and thumbing through his phone a bit. “Whenever you're ready, babe.”

Zayn grabbed the bottle of lube from wherever Harry had discarded it, slicking himself up slowly and making pouty faces at Harry's phone before he braced himself over Louis, leaning forward to kiss him as he pressed in. It felt a bit weird, Louis had to admit – most of the time he had had threesomes he used condoms, and he'd never let someone come inside of him and then have someone else plunge in and fuck him right afterward – it wasn't bad, just a little strange, especially when Harry tossed Zayn a pillow and Zayn placed it underneath Louis' hips, using the leverage to fuck into Louis more deeply, the sound and sensation of it all extremely wet, almost like Louis was a girl.

Which also seemed to be a turn on, because Louis found himself hard all over again. Fuck, being young was awesome.

“Harry, are you still recording?” Zayn asked, looking over at Harry, who definitely still had his phone in one hand and his dick in the other.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed.

“Cool, 'cause I'm about to come,” Zayn answered and just like that he braced his head against Louis' shoulder, taking a deep, shuddering breath as he shot off deep inside of Louis. He went a bit useless above Louis for a moment, his weight slightly crushing Louis underneath him, but then he seemed to remember himself, and slid down the length of Louis' body and wrapped his own lips around Louis' dick, the surprise of it all wrenching Louis' second orgasm out of him stupidly fast.

“That was fucking hot,” Harry commented, stroking himself idly as he stopped his recording and tossed his phone somewhere on the other side of the room. “Can I come on your face, Louis?”

“Sure,” Louis slurred, completely dazed and out of it as sleepiness overtook him. “Just don't – my hair – ”

Louis was asleep before he even finished his sentence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is my first time trying to write a threesome. I hope it didn't suck.


	11. Chapter Eleven: TMZ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A part of him wondered if it was too little, too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late again, I'm so sorry.
> 
> Tremendous thanks to Frida and to all of you for being amazing.

Louis spent the following night after the threesome the way most people do after having an amazing, earth-shattering sexual encounter involving their boyfriend and his ex friend with benefits who you've also sucked off in the shower – getting falling down, embarrassingly drunk.

“You're going to get us arrested,” Zayn yelled into Louis' ear as he removed Louis' hands from inside of his jeans. They were all at some super upscale club that Louis had never gone to – Zayn and Louis in the VIP section, Harry taking pictures with a pair of energetic, blonde fans near the bar, Niall and Liam cutting the rug on the dance floor, the two of them immediate and fast friends. The club had provided them with two bottles of Grey Goose and juice for mixers, but Louis had been taking straight shots all night, because he was having a lot of confusing, swirly thoughts in his head and needed to like. Not. Think.

Zayn, however, was 100% sober. This in itself should've been alarming, considering the beating he gave his liver on the daily, but Louis was too drunk to really comment. Or notice. Or do anything besides try to get Zayn naked.

“C'mon, babe,” Louis whined, palming Zayn's ass with the hand that wasn't sloshing vodka onto the sticky club floor. “Let's get off in the toilets.”

“I seriously doubt you could even get it up right now,” Zayn remarked sagely. “Maybe we should take you home.”

“NO!” Louis screeched, spilling the rest of his shot because he was suddenly extremely distraught. “Can't go home now!”

“Louis – ”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT?” Louis yelled, stomping his foot and doing his best Lil Jon impersonation. Zayn sighed.

“Please stop yelling. I'm standing right next to you. I can hear you perfectly fine.”

Louis pouted as the weird Katy Perry remix the DJ had been playing gave way to something slower, sexier. Louis pushed himself flush against Zayn, humming softly as he swayed to the beat, burrowing his face in the crook of Zayn's neck and running his tongue against his sweaty skin. Zayn brought his hand to Louis' waist and swayed a bit awkwardly along with him, before leaning his head forward, his hot breath puffing against the shell of Louis' ear as he crooned, “Ooh na na na, put your hands in the air if you're loving tonight. Ooh na na na, keep your hands in the air if you're spending the night.”

“Who is this?” Louis asked thickly, feeling heat pool in his crotch at the sound of Zayn's singing voice.

“Trey Songz,” Zayn answered, using the hand on Louis' waist to dip his fingers underneath Louis' top. “We can go home and after you sober up, I'll play his whole discography for you as I eat you out.”

“Fucking Christ – ” Louis cursed, his body shivering, and he made a noise of acceptance, his brain suddenly yelling, “Go, go, _go_ ,” when he felt someone plaster themselves along his back. Zayn groaned and Louis turned around, grinning at the sight of Harry in front of him. Harry leaned in and kissed Louis filthily, wrapping his hands around the back of Louis' neck and pulling him in closer, humming once Louis brought his hands to sit at Harry's hips.

“You're going to end up getting papped, Harry,” Zayn warned, pulling at Louis' shoulders. “Be fucking careful.”

“Ah, whatever, Zayn, you're no fun,” Harry said, smirking at Zayn. “Or maybe you're just jealous?”

“Stop being a moron,” Zayn answered a little testily. “I don't _care_ what you two do.”

“Sure you don't,” Harry answered, smirking and running his hands up Louis' sides.

Zayn seemed to be gnashing his teeth. Louis tried not to think too hard as to why that was. “I _don't_ , Harry, and fuck whatever you're playing at. Just not by the railing, all right?”

Harry rolled his eyes before leaning back in to kiss Louis again. Louis hummed against Harry's lips, licking slowly into Harry's mouth. Louis dimly heard Zayn sigh again and then he was gone, but it didn't really matter, because Harry was pushing Louis against the club wall and palming Louis' dick through his jeans. Louis grinned and wrapped his arms around Harry's neck, trying to pull him in impossibly closer as he lost all sense of time – grinding against Harry as the beat changed, giving way to some Justin Timberlake and then some mindless house beats, and fucking into Harry's mouth with his tongue until they were both breathless, panting against each other with swollen lips and leaning against the railing separating the VIP section from the general club once more.

“Come back to my place, okay?” Harry mumbled, running his hand through Louis' sweaty hair.

“Yeah, of course,” Louis replied and then they were hailing a cab, and fucking about in the backseat, Harry sucking hotly on Louis' neck, and then they were in Harry's bedroom, giggling and taking their clothes off. And Louis didn't remember much beyond that.

 

Louis woke up the next morning feeling nauseous, nursing a pretty serious headache, and with way more notifications on his phone than he went to bed with. Harry was sitting on the other side of the bed, also looking significantly worse for wear, completely nude and hair a tangled mess as he patiently listened to someone who sounded like they were yelling at him on the phone.

“Yes, I understand that I was reckless,” Harry interrupted. “But I don't see why it's such a big deal?” The other person on the phone launched into a fresh bit of yelling, Harry wincing as he listened. “Well, I mean – I don't think – ”

Louis tapped Harry on the shoulder and Harry turned, smiling at Louis apologetically. “Who is it?” Louis mouthed.

“My manager,” Harry mouthed back before frowning suddenly. “Wait – hold on. Zayn said what?”

“Oh Lord,” Louis mumbled, rolling over to grab his own phone and thumb through his Whatsapp notifications, stomach churning as he read through his conversation with Zayn the previous night. It was kind of hard to decipher his own texts – God he needed to keep his phone away from himself whenever he was drinking – but Zayn had texted him at something like two in the morning, asking where he had gone, and Louis had drunkenly explained that he had gone home with Harry “2 Hv SEXXXXDX,” which had seemingly ticked Zayn off because he subsequently texted that Louis needed to start taking their relationship seriously and stop fucking off whenever something made him uncomfortable and clearly their threesome had, if the way he was acting like a drunk asshole was any indication, which led to Louis calling Zayn a “ducking hypokrit” and telling him to “eat asw zlwone at home!!$!”

Louis groaned before switching over to Twitter, choosing to ignore Harry's increasingly frantic conversation with his manager at the moment. Louis' mentions were a complete mess, almost everyone talking in caps lock over some stupid article that TMZ had posted. Louis clicked the first link he saw, and immediately wished he didn't, because there was a picture of himself and Harry making out against the railing at the club last night, with the headline “Did Harry Do It For The Vine?” Louis skimmed through the rest of the article, but quickly realized that it definitely didn't paint a very good picture of himself: “And Tomlinson, who is a very popular YouTube and Vine personality known for recording himself performing sexually explicit dance moves, has only recently announced his romantic relationship with former Disney darling, Zayn Malik. Malik has yet to issue a public statement at this time, but will very likely be tweeting his reaction over the next few hours.”

Louis choked down his nausea and then hesitantly logged into his Tumblr account, automatically clicking through to Zayn's page out of habit. Zayn had seemingly been replying to asks since something like six in the morning, and when someone had asked him, “Does Louis making out with Harry Styles in that TMZ article mean that you and him are broken up?” Zayn replied with a very heartbreaking, “I guess.”

“Fuck,” Louis cursed. “Fuck, I really, really fucked up.”

Harry leaned over, placing his phone on the comforter as his manager continued to yell about “irresponsible up and coming acts with dicks for brains” as he took Louis' face in his hands. “Louis, we didn't even _do_ anything last night. We just tried to give each other blow jobs until we realized we were to drunk to get off, all right?”

“That's actually a really interesting definition of not doing anything,” Louis remarked.

“You just need to tell Zayn – we didn't do anything _wrong_ ,” Harry continued, desperation bleeding into his voice. “The media shit will sort itself out, you just need to talk to Zayn and you guys can get back to normal, and then maybe you can vouch for me, and then Zayn and I will be cool.”

“Get back to normal?” Louis repeated. “How can I – TMZ just called me out as a cheater. My mom is going to yell at me for _ages_. Zayn told someone on Tumblr that we're broken up. How can anything here go back to normal?”

“HARRY!” Harry's manager bellowed from the cell phone lying in between them. “YOU STILL HAVE THAT LOUIS BOY IN YOUR HOUSE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“Um,” Harry said, scrambling to pick up his phone while still looking at Louis. “We'll just – lemme call you a cab, Louis, and we can work this out after my manager makes me go to media training and all that.”

 

Harry did indeed call Louis a cab, and Louis spent the whole ride back home obsessively calling Zayn's cell phone. Zayn ignored every call, so Louis decided to spam their Whatsapp chat. It was frustrating, because it was obvious that Zayn was looking at all of the texts, considering his last online times – he just wasn't responding to Louis. He _was_ responding to more random asks on Tumblr about their relationship, though. Dick.

By the time he finally arrived home, Louis felt like a fucking wreck. He was still nauseous but simultaneously really fucking hungry, and his headache felt even worse, if that was possible. Niall had crashed on their living room couch, still wearing last night's clothes and his signature snapback, and he looked up blearily when Louis let himself in.

“Zayn's fucking pissed at you, bro,” Niall croaked, readjusting his cap and then clutching his temple with a groan. “Said something bout – 'How's he gonna just leave with Harry when I'm his boyfriend – '”

“I think he dumped me using Tumblr,” Louis blurted, shoving the door closed and making an apologetic face when Niall winced. “Like, I'm actually 98% sure he just dumped me. TMZ got a picture of Harry and I making out last night – ”

“Fucking idiots, the both of you,” Niall interjected.

“ – And then Zayn said something about he guessed that meant we were broken up, and he's not answering my calls or responding to my texts but he's still responding to asks about us on Tumblr and he's probably just getting drunker and thinking up more reasons why we shouldn't be together – ”

“You guys have only been dating for like, two weeks,” Niall mumbled. “How did you manage to mess up so fundamentally in only two weeks? It's almost as impressive as it is stupid. He probably _should_ dump you. It's obvious that boy is half in love with you and that's why he was acting like such a selfish asshole the last few months, because he didn't know how to deal with all of his emotions, but he finally got his shit together, and your answer to getting the guy you've been uselessly pining after for _months_ is to have a threesome with his friend and then promptly dick off with said friend like the next day and get papped doing it. Ace job at life, Louis Tomlinson.”

Louis frowned. “You were supposed to say something that would make me feel better about myself.”

“Fuck you, I'm too hungover for that shit,” Niall continued, muttering half of his sentence into the couch cushion. “You sleeping with both of them was a dumb idea – there, I said it. Zayn clearly didn't want to do it, I don't think _you_ even really wanted to do it, and I'm half convinced that Harry is only using you to get back at Zayn or something, and you're just playing right into his game. If Harry has some issue with Zayn, that's between the two of them and you shouldn't have any fucking part in it. And yeah, I get that Zayn was being shady all fucking year and Harry was your soul mate, woo hoo, but Zayn's gotten better about being super open about his feelings – I follow him on Tumblr and Twitter, Lou, don't make that face – and yet now _you're_ the one holding everything super fucking close to the chest. It's dumb. If you love Zayn, just tell him. If you want Harry, too, just tell Zayn that. If you'd rather be single, tell both of them. I don't give a fuck what you do, just stop playing the victim and go _do_ what will make you happy.”

Niall sighed dramatically before turning back over, mumbling something about, “give the best advice and nobody ever takes it,” and then drifting back to sleep.

Louis stared at him before grabbing his keys and walking out of his apartment.

 

Louis was suddenly very glad that Zayn's apartment was on the outside perimeter of his building because Louis had a handful of pebbles and was steadily throwing them at the door on Zayn's balcony. It only took about five rocks before Zayn was standing shirtless on the balcony in front of him, soft, vulnerable, red-rimmed eyes hardly detracting from the fact that he was glaring at Louis.

“Go away,” Zayn snarled.

“No,” Louis answered.

“I will call the police.”

Louis shrugged. “Wouldn't be the first time I've gotten arrested.”

Zayn crooked his head to the side and looked at Louis contemplatively. “What were you arrested for before?”

Louis shrugged, dropping the rest of the pebbles on the ground. “Can't tell ya unless you let me come up.”

Zayn frowned. “I'm really upset with you right now. I don't want you in my apartment, and that's partially for your own safety. I have a few swords in my bedroom from a movie I did once, and I know how to use them.”

“Okay,” Louis acknowledged. “A bit strange, but okay. That's fine. We can have this conversation here.”

Zayn crossed his arms over his chest and leaned away from the balcony. “So. What do you want?”

“Um. To apologize?”

“Are you sure that you want to apologize, or is there something unclear there?”

Louis groaned, running his hand through his fringe. He still had a fucking tremendous headache and was hungry as all hell. Maybe after he won back Zayn's heart, he'd drive them to In-N-Out. “No, no, there's nothing unclear there. I'm so fucking sorry, Zayn. I was a massive tool last night and I – I don't even know why I went back with Harry. Like, having a threesome with him did not mean an open pass whenever I wanted one. It's obvious that all of that made you uncomfortable in the first place, and I'm sorry that I like – pressured you. Made you feel like you had to do that, for whatever reason.”

Zayn fidgeted a bit and nodded once, jerkily. “All right. I mean – I should've told you that I didn't want to do it. I just. I thought it was obvious? Like, it was a fucking awful idea, Louis. I don't want Harry like that anymore, or anyone else – just you.”

It was the kind of verbal confirmation that Louis had been dreaming about for something like . . . six months? Eight? A year? Louis couldn't do math that well. It was just a lot to process, okay? The type of fact that killed any attempt at basic math. Taking in the fact that Zayn, someone so beautiful and thoughtful and talented, wanted him and only him – Louis, that idiot from Vine and a few occasional YouTube videos.

A part of him wondered if it was too little, too late, though.

“Zayn,” Louis started, licking his lips. “I – you know I'm in love with you, right?” Zayn nodded slowly, hesitantly. Louis took a deep breath and said, “I'm – I'm so fucking ecstatic that that's where you are at this point, but I don't know if I can – if I can promise the same.”

“Promise what?” Zayn asked, chewing his bottom lip relentlessly. “Monogamy?”

“Yeah.” Zayn ran his hands along his balcony rail and studiously avoided Louis' eyes. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Maybe,” Zayn admitted with a sigh. “If I wanted a boyfriend who dicked around with other people, I'd – fuck. I'd date Harry.”

“Zayn – ”

“No, lemme just get this out because apparently it's really important that we really properly talk about this,” Zayn said in a rush. “I realize that I've done _everything_ wrong. And it's basically my fault that you're telling me that you don't think you can date me without having Harry on the side. Like, I get that. That doesn't mean I have to like it, or even _accept_ it. I think this might be a bit of a deal breaker for me.”

“So you _are_ breaking up with me then?” Louis said, swallowing down the sick that was threatening to creep up his throat and onto the pavement. “Was there no point in me coming over to apologize? Did last night make you realize that I wasn't fucking _worth_ _it_ , or something?”

“That's not what I said – ”

“That's what it sounds like on my end. Why else would you use the words 'deal breaker'? Are you done with me, then? Because you've been talking about it all fucking morning on Tumblr – ”

“Louis – ”

“Fuck you, Zayn,” Louis said, swiping away angry tears and laughing without any mirth. “I tell you I love you and then I get dumped. Figures. Everyone else treats me like shit, why should you be any different?”

“It doesn't have to be the end – ”

“Then what is it?” Louis asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “If this isn't you dumping me, what is it?”

Zayn still couldn't even reach Louis' eyes. “I just. I need some time, all right? This – the last like, two days have been so much to process, Louis.”

“How much time?”

“I don't know, Lou.”

Louis clenched his jaw and huffed, trying his hardest not to stamp his feet and scream and cry until he got his way. It was taking everything in his being not to. “I'll just. I'm going to go home and drink everything in sight.”

“Louis – ”

“Whatever,” Louis mumbled and he turned to walk back home. He puked in front of Starbucks halfway there and didn't even feel any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can never decide whether this fic is the worst thing I've ever written or my masterpiece.


	12. Chapter Twelve: Not Really The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no way this was really the end – as if it ever could've been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frida you're the best beta. And you're all amazing. Thanks so much for everything <3

Louis hoped that “some time” would mean something like two days. A week _tops_. But Louis didn't see Zayn again until something like four months later – not that Louis had been obsessively keeping track, or anything. Not like Louis still studiously monitored Zayn's social media presence, even as he told himself to just like – move on. Since it was obvious that Zayn was doing the same, “I just need some time” clearly empty words that were supposed to make Louis feel better about the whole getting dumped in an apartment parking lot thing.

So yeah. Louis had moved on. Specifically with Harry. Not that they were really dating, per se. They were just kind of like . . . mutually miserable and misery loves company, blah blah blah. It was nice though, Louis forcing himself to go to class (cut that time in community college from seventy million years to a more manageable fifty million years) and then meeting up with Harry and Liam in the studio afterward, watching the two of them go through the process of writing, recording, and then rewriting their album. The first go-through had been a very happy, poppy adventure, but as Louis started to sit in on their sessions, the songwriting took a decidedly darker detour, the cute songs about puppy love and partying giving way to haunting tracks about insecurities, missed opportunities, lost friendship.

It was weird. Louis learned more about Zayn and Harry's friendship through those songs than through weeks of Louis gritting his teeth, fighting down his own bile, and finally just asking Harry about what Zayn and Harry had _really_ been up to. Whereas Harry was vague in their strained conversations, he was anything but in the lyrics he had put to paper and was planning on putting out to the world – intricate verses that told of two boys who silently watched each other, even as one of them was dating the other's best friend, two boys who finally put voice to the desire that had been thrumming through them, and one boy who was scared he had lost it all the moment he realized that he loved the other too much, moving past platonic and into a scary unknown – just at the moment that another new, breezy relationship was introduced into their lives. Louis had never really thought of Zayn and Harry's relationship as one-sided, partially because he didn't really like thinking about what they had without him all that much, but it was clear that Harry thought that his feelings were unrequited.

The execs weren't too thrilled about all of the extra songs Harry and Liam now wanted to add to their first major label release, but Liam tossed out the idea of offering the new tracks on a separate CD, and next thing you knew, they had inked a special deal with Target for a two-disc special edition. The fangirls were eating up the announcement and it seemed like Harry and Liam were looking at a pretty strong opening for their highly anticipated debut.

It was a really exciting time for Louis – being a part of all of this with Harry and Liam, kind of dating Harry, his own social media presence finally bringing in a real, liveable income for himself even as he buckled down and started concentrating on school again. It was a really exciting time, except during those moments when Louis remembered that Zayn still wasn't talking to him. Was still “taking his time.” Was hooking up with strangers on the internet again, was posting pictures of himself looking happy and all beardy, cuddled up with some blonde girl who drew on her lips, captioning them with Jhene Aiko lyrics. Louis wanted to cry approximately 97% of the time, even though his life was so fucking exciting, superficially everything he had ever wanted. So he just. Like. Went and fucked Harry instead as a coping mechanism more often than not. Sex couldn't solve all of his problems, Louis knew that. But it could take his mind off of most of them.

 

Harry and Liam's album release party was going to be at the House of Blues. As Harry's kind of boyfriend thing, Louis was expected to go. He understood that on a rational level. It would look really bad if he wasn't there, cheering on his tabloid boyfriend or whatever. However, that didn't mean he particularly _wanted_ to go.

“Louis, 'course ya got to go,” Niall said with a sigh, smashing a snapback onto his head and pouting at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Louis was sitting shirtless and pants-less on the toilet seat cover, ruing Niall's ability to get ready for special events in nothing but ten minutes flat. “You know what it would look like if you didn't show. Plus Harry and Liam would both throw a fucking fit. Just put on some pants and do your hair, all right?”

“I have a bad feeling about this party,” Louis answered with a sigh. “My horoscope told me that I would have to deal with a potential conflict with tact and . . . fuck I forgot what else it said.”

Niall glared at Louis. “So deal with the fucking potential conflict that may arise between you and fucking Harry by fucking going to his fucking party, you fucking idiot.”

“Say 'fucking' again.”

“I'm going to fucking shove a bottle of shampoo up your ass if you don't start getting ready,” Niall answered brightly. “Get a move on.”

“Kinky,” Louis replied but he sighed and did as he was told, walking into his bedroom, nearly tripping over his laptop where he had left it in the middle of the floor, and pulling out his pair of nice (read: vaguely clean) jeans and a Joy Division T-shirt. Louis immediately went to grab a pair of Tom's but thought against it, instead pulling on a pair of Jordan's that Louis had impulsively bought off eBay one day when he was feeling particularly nostalgic, pathetic and self-pitying. He pulled on a black hoodie to complete the look, and then busied himself for the next forty-five minutes trying to get his hair absolutely perfect. He and Niall then set off, arriving at the venue only something like twenty minutes late. The paps got a few good shots of Louis and Niall arriving, getting out of Louis' shitty car, and entering the venue, which had not ceased to be really weird – getting followed by a handful of paparazzi every day of his life ever since the TMZ incident – and Louis took a deep breath when they finally got inside and were ushered backstage. Harry and Liam's green room was small and intimate, filled with healthy food because Liam and Harry were both conscious about important shit like that, but while Liam was calmly warming up his vocals, Harry was pacing the room and looked vaguely like he was about to puke.

“What's up with you?” Louis asked, walking over to Harry and poking him once in the cheek where he knew Harry's dimple lived. “Nervous, babe?”

“Zayn's here,” Harry blurted, his eyes darting everywhere. “He came in to say hi and good luck and then went back into the crowd with that blonde chick he's been hanging around everywhere with.”

For some reason, the thought of Zayn coming to the album release party had never crossed Louis' mind. Zayn had kind of ceased to be a real person for Louis in this weird way, but instead existed as this abstract, untouchable being whose only purpose was to make Louis miserable from a distance. “Huh,” Louis said instead of blurting all of this out.

“He was really being quite nice, I think,” Liam chimed in from the other side of the room. “Although it would've been better to know that he was like, actually coming. To avoid this freak out, mainly.”

“He wasn't being really nice, he was being a dick,” Harry moaned. “He knows what this party means for us, he's got to know that the album is about him and Louis – I said about as much in that _Rolling Stone_ article – ”

“That piece was fucking awesome,” Niall said around half a banana. “Didn't know if I had told ya, bro.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, somewhat hollowly. “But nothing for _months_? Not even a basic acknowledgment that he had gotten the invite when they went out? He's just come to fuck with my head, and you know what sucks? That it's fucking _working_.”

“I don't think he has, Harry,” Liam replied delicately. “I think he was just doing what friends do – supporting each other in times of need.”

“Times of need? Like the past four fucking months?” Harry took a deep steadying breath and then threw himself against the green room couch, moaning into the couch cushion. Louis pouted before sitting besides Harry, running comforting hands through his hair.

“You're upset too, right, Louis?” Harry mumbled. “You're upset that he's here now when all you've wanted is to work shit out with him for the past four months?”

“Yeah,” Louis replied, his hand clenching unconsciously against Harry's scalp. “I'm fucking furious.”

And he was. Because Zayn had ceased to be a real person for Louis, but was instead this weird untouchable being who only existed to make Louis miserable, but who was now in the fucking building, meaning he was a real person who really only existed to make Louis miserable. Louis knew he should've stayed home.

“Let's take some shots to make ourselves feel better,” Louis suggested. Liam immediately began protesting.

“No, Harry, you can't start drinking before a gig! That's how it starts, and next thing you know you're a Behind the Music special – ”

“Shut up, Liam,” Harry said comfortably before nodding at Niall, who shrugged and pulled a flask out of his jeans pocket.

“God bless the Irish,” Louis joked and Niall grinned, pouring about a shots worth of whiskey into both Louis' and Harry's mouths.

“This is a tremendously stupid idea,” Liam warned lowly.

 

It only sort of was.

 

Harry took another shot before cutting himself off, but Louis didn't have to worry about things like performing or acting like a sober, responsible human being. He could be as belligerent as he wanted, and he wanted to be very, very sloppy at this particular moment. The quickest way to achieve that was to challenge Niall to a drinking competition, so the two of them slammed back drink after drink before settling into the roped off VIP section that had been set up on the floor, off to the side. Niall was nothing but cuddly and red when he was drunk, so he buried his face in Louis' neck and snuggled there while Louis nursed yet another rum and coke and waited for Harry and Liam to come out on stage with their band. Louis was tapping out a nonsensical beat on Niall's leg when he fucking _sensed_ Zayn walking over to them. That was weird. People generally didn't sense other people's presences. Maybe Louis was a psychic.

“Hey,” Zayn said, coming to stand next to them with a small smile. He looked really good – his beard fully grown out, wearing an Obey snapback, his signature leather jacket throw over a Mick Jagger T-shirt, skinny jeans, and red Air Yeezy 2 sneakers.

“Argh, I should go,” Niall said, jolting up and immediately trying to bolt. Louis grabbed Niall by the arm and sent him a pleading look. Niall groaned and settled back down next to Louis, laying his head in Louis' lap instead this time and turning his face into Louis' stomach. Zayn watched the whole exchange with a distinctly uncomfortable expression before turning to Louis.

“Where's your girlfriend?” Louis asked, taking an obnoxious slurp from his drink.

“Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, blonde hair. Constantly wearing your snapbacks on your Instagram. Ergo your girlfriend.” Louis wasn't sure if he used that word correctly – “ergo”. He didn't care.

“She's not my girlfriend,” Zayn said, rolling his eyes. “And I didn't immediately demand to ask where your fucking _boyfriend_ is, Louis, so that's not fair.”

“You mean the guy you practically shoved me into the arms of?” Louis continued, not even bothering to effect a nice, albeit extremely sarcastic tone of voice. He was too drunk to care. He was just going to be blatantly mean, because Zayn deserved it. “You didn't immediately ask because you know where he is. Having a fucking breakdown because you surprised him at his album release party.”

Distantly, Louis started to notice that people were paying attention to their conversation. Heads turned in their direction, cell phones were being pulled out and pointed at them. Which would make sense, right? They were semi-famous exes. People paid attention when semi-famous exes were having a fight in public.

“I didn't shove you into Harry's arms,” Zayn hissed. “I told you I needed some time, and I log onto Tumblr twelve hours later and see that TMZ papped you going right back to his house. You didn't need a shove – you fucking _ran_.”

“You want to talk about what's not fair? _That's_ not fair. I went over to Harry's that night because he was a mess, thinking he'd ruined your guys' friendship and I wanted to console him, not fuck him.”

“Oh, because you two are capable of consoling each other without penetration involved,” Zayn retorted. “Sorry, I completely forgot about that detail.”

“Well, I forgot how you always jumped to assumptions without hearing me out,” Louis said, ignoring the way that Niall clenched his hand against Louis' thigh as a warning. “You always, without fail, assumed the worst about me, whereas I always, fucking _always_ , tried to see the best in you, Zayn, even when it didn't make any sense.” Louis took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the way his emotions were threatening to spill out through unflattering tears and uncomfortable words. “And I still do, Zayn. I still lo– ”

The house lights lowered and a great cheer went through the crowd. Zayn locked eyes with Louis as the first chords started and in that brief moment, Louis completely understood – well. Everything. Was smacked in the face with everything he had kind of been fighting not to confront head on. Understood that Zayn had been stupid, and Harry had been, too, but nobody had been dumber than Louis. Louis who had worked so hard to delude himself into believing that _Zayn_ wasn't the fucking love of his life, his real soul mate. This was a conversation delayed, not one that would never be taken up again. There was still way too much here between them. There was no way this was really the end – as if it ever could've been.

Zayn tapped Louis' hand once with his finger, smiling self-deprecatingly, before he slunk into the crowd. Louis forced himself to breathe. To his side, Niall sat up and wrapped his arms around Louis' waist, anchoring him. Louis closed his eyes and lost himself in the swell of Liam's bass and the sound of Harry's voice.

 

 

_One Year Later_

 

“Move over, why don't you,” Zayn said, shoving at Louis' hips where he was sitting on the bench in the bowling alley. Louis sighed and stood, readjusting his mic pack as he did so, but Zayn just rolled his eyes, pulling Louis into his lap instead. Louis leaned into Zayn's chest and sighed, doing his best to ignore the camera crew zooming in on them to his right.

“How long will it be before I'm used to the cameras, again, do you think?” Louis asked, directing his question into Zayn's neck, although his mic probably still picked it up. More useless footage for the producers to sort through, then.

Zayn just shrugged. “Probably another few weeks? I don't know. It _is_ really strange, huh?”

The reality show idea had come from Harry's label. They pitched it as a mash-up of The Hills and Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life – a way to make the fans feel as though they were getting an intimate look at Harry and Liam, these untouchable international rock stars. Initially, the focus was to be on Harry and Liam as touring artists living the dream or some nonsense like that, but Harry had been adamant that he wasn't going to sign on so long as his downtime and relationship with Zayn and Louis weren't also a significant feature. It was a testament to how much sway Harry held with his label that they caved.

It was also a testament to how much things had changed that _this_ was now their reality. Harry was no longer that guy from X Factor – no, he was a rock star in his own fucking right. And Zayn had started doing the actor thing, again, landing a role in a Steve McQueen film that had yet to be shot but which was already getting a tremendous amount of buzz. As for Louis? He was still in community college, but at least he had worked things out with both Harry and Zayn. It had taken _ages_ , but after some really strange therapy sessions and a few books that Zayn had uselessly tried to make Louis read, they finally reached an agreement that allegedly worked out for all of them – Zayn and Louis as the primary intimate relationship and Harry dating them as a unit, although it was basically understood that Harry was mostly Louis' boyfriend and Harry also wasn't expected to be exclusive when he was on tour. Louis and Zayn weren't allowed any solo sexual time with only Harry, and everyone said they were content with that arrangement, although Louis had some suspicions that Zayn and Harry were both to some degree humoring him. For now, he was all right with that. The less outward jealousy (and the more threesomes) to deal with, the better.

When Harry and Liam's show premiered, CNN had called it “The first reality show on a major network to feature and normalize an LGBT polyamorous relationship,” whereas a few conservative family groups called it a sign of the upcoming apocalypse and put in a lot of effort trying to get it pulled. MTV had been great though, standing by their decision to tape and air the show, and all of the controversy pulled in massive numbers, so they easily got the second season renewed.

Louis had gone from being a weirdo on Vine to being a weirdo on nationally broadcasted television, which wasn't that strange of a leap, although it was a lot to take in, knowing that people would be watching all of Louis' moves, dissecting them, judging them. Judging him. But he could do it. Had been dealing with judgment from strangers for a while now. With Zayn and Harry by his side, he would do it (and keep cashing those huge MTV paychecks, ha take that haters).

Harry miraculously bowled a strike and came up to Zayn and Louis, smacking them both with wet, over the top kisses and laughing like it was the most hilarious thing in the world. Louis could imagine the Tumblr gif sets already. Louis shoved Harry away before turning to Zayn, nuzzling further into his comforting embrace and asking, “Bowl for me, yeah, Harry?”

Harry pouted. “The whole point of coming to the bowling alley is like. Having everyone bowl.”

Louis rolled his eyes and stared blankly at Harry, who sighed and picked up Louis' ball, throwing it down the lane with all of the delicacy and finesse of a baby giraffe. It immediately rolled into the gutter.

“Smooth, Styles,” Zayn said, smirking. Harry smiled back a bit shyly before ambling over to the rest of their group, grabbing a slice of pizza off the table and joking with them. Zayn watched Harry with a small frown and Louis tapped Zayn's arm. That was something that they still needed to really deal with – Zayn and Harry's _whatever_. “What?” Zayn asked, smiling at Louis so that his eyes squinted up into hazel half moon crescents.

“All right?” Louis mouthed.

“Yeah,” Zayn confirmed, ruffling Louis' hair. Louis squawked indignantly but let the subject drop, almost forgetting about that small, nagging feeling of something left unresolved the minute Niall pulled Louis out of Zayn's lap, dragging him over to the Jukebox and commanding Louis to do an impromptu striptease by yelling, “Cmon, Lou! Do it for the vine!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what to say, besides THANK YOU for sticking with this story, even though it basically turned into this giant Zouis odyssey (also, fun fact but I actually have tried to rearrange the tags on this story something like ten times ever since the third chapter to get Zouis to be the primary ship but it won't let me change them???) and even though it doesn't really have like, a linear plot, or anything to do with anything.
> 
> I've got a bunch of other fic ideas in the works, including a Ziam (or maybe it'll be Zilo, I haven't figured it out yet) that will be in the same vein as this one, in that the idea is STUPID, so follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xtracalidopechk) or [Tumblr](http://catholicschoolgirl.tumblr.com/) if you want to ask me about what I'm up to fic-wise.
> 
> Thanks again! You're all amazing.


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